“Because Philip kicked the man out and gave him a miserable referral. He was convinced that the bankruptcy was Frank’s fault.” Lina didn’t tell her that she had already talked with Frank Jensen. “Frank has been unemployed since then and holds Philip personally responsible for that.”
Lina scrutinized the woman across from her. She seemed to be intelligent and self-assured, not like someone who’s easily hoodwinked. “But you don’t think that Herr Jensen had anything to do with it?”
Tanja Fischer shook her head. “No way. I mean, I don’t know enough about the technical part of it, but from what I heard it was rather simple, almost a careless mistake. Frank simply isn’t the type to plan something like that. I mean, he’s a good, honest guy, stuffy . . .”She shook her head again.
“Did you ever discuss the matter with Herr Birkner?”
“No. At the time, we avoided each other as best we could. He had just become a father and three or four weeks later disaster struck.” She blushed. “To be honest, I felt pleased in the beginning that he got such a raw deal. I mean . . . he dumped me because of this Katja Ansmann . . . That’s it, that’s her name: Ansmann.” She shrugged. “Obviously, I was hurt at first, and then came rage. And about the same time the data leak and data theft became public, and the theft of the patent. Honestly, I liked it.”
Lina could understand that. Revenge was sweet, and when the universe for once stood on the side of the poor and downtrodden . . . “How come you and Herr Birkner hooked up again after all that?” Lina asked.
Tanja Fischer laughed bitterly. “Philip missed the sex. It’s really that simple.” Then she was quiet and looked to the floor. “He called me a little more than half a year after the bankruptcy. He wanted to see me. At first I was reluctant, but eventually I agreed.” She sighed and looked up. “You didn’t know him, but I swear to you, if Philip set his mind on something, he always got it. He could wrap you around his little finger.” She sighed again. “He told me how much he missed me, how often he thought about me, dreamed about me . . . The usual, but when he said it, it sounded unique. He gave me compliments, he smelled good, and he took me out to dinner. He made me feel beautiful and desirable, as if I were someone special.” Tanja Fischer wiped away tears. “I knew that he was mostly interested in sex. He told me that he didn’t get much with this Katja but that he wouldn’t leave her because of the child. At least not right away. He was honest, but also gave me hope—of things that probably would never happen. I went along with it.” She took a deep breath. “So we saw each other once or twice a week. He visited me or we met somewhere and then went to my place. His apartment was taboo, of course—as were discussions about his relationship with Katja.” Tanja Fischer looked out the window again. “Even though Philip came mostly for sex, we occasionally did things together. We actually liked talking with each other. But it was clear that he’d never leave Katja for me because she had something I could never offer him: money. Money and all the right connections.”
Lina had listened in silence and had not even taken notes. When Tanja Fischer stopped talking, Lina asked, “Did you ever talk to him about the Inoware bankruptcy?”
Philip Birkner’s lover turned to her. “Once, about a month or two ago. I had run into Frank Jensen at the market, by chance, and was appalled at how badly things were going for him. He looked run-down and told me he was still being investigated for industrial espionage and his wife had left him a week earlier. I told Philip about it and asked whether he really believed Frank had committed industrial espionage. If so, he must have done it on a volunteer basis since everyone could see that Frank Jensen didn’t have a dime.” Tanja Fischer smiled a tired smile. “Philip just shrugged, said he didn’t want to talk about it, and changed the subject. He simply wasn’t interested.” She shook her head. “He wasn’t interested at all in what had become of Frank. Since that day,” she added quietly, “something changed. I changed. I began to withdraw and stopped agreeing to meet him whenever he felt like it.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t unhappy about the business trip to Frankfurt last weekend. Philip had invited me to a concert I didn’t feel like attending. But we hadn’t seen each other for some time and he became rather insistent.” With a crooked smile, she said sadly, “Just like a stubborn little boy who wants to get his way.”
Lina didn’t doubt that the woman told her the truth, but she still asked her about details of the business trip, which she would verify later. “Why didn’t you take your cell phone along? We’ve been trying to reach you all weekend.”
Tanja Fischer blushed. “The battery was dead and I forgot to bring the charger,” she said.
Lina suppressed a grin. Then she thought about what Tanja Fischer had said before. “You described Philip Birkner as a stubborn boy . . . Did he ever try to get what he wanted by force?”
Tanja Fischer raised an eyebrow. “You mean . . . No. At least not with me. But with me he usually got what he wanted.” She swallowed. “There was no need for him to rape me.”
“Do you think he would have been capable of such a thing?”
The woman looked out the window again. “I don’t know. With men we know, we can never imagine they’d be capable of it, can we?”
Lina nodded slowly. She had a point. “Frau Fischer, do you know if Herr Birkner had any other girlfriends besides you?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I assume so.” Tanja Fischer looked Lina straight in the eye. “As I said already, Philip was after sex. And when he no longer got it from me to the extent he wanted it, he surely must have turned to other women.” She shrugged. “It was like that before, too, when we were first together.” She blushed as if she had spilled the beans. “Well, when I thought we had a stable relationship. He cheated on me once or twice then, maybe more. He didn’t even deny it.” She pressed her lips together until they were nothing but a thin line.
Lina let it go. It was enough for her to know that Philip hadn’t been one to say no to a one-night stand and had no problem finding women for it. Who knows what stories he used to tell them . . . or what the women chose to hear.
“One more question, Frau Fischer: If you can’t imagine that Frank Jensen doctored the software at Inoware, who’s your suspect?”
Tanja Fischer hesitated for a moment. She was well aware of the possible ramifications of her answer. “Daniel Vogler,” she finally said but added quickly, “I mean, who else is there? Philip wasn’t going to ruin his own company and if it wasn’t Frank, only Daniel remains. They were the only computer scientists at the company who had access to the database.”
“And you think he’s capable of industrial espionage on such scale—as opposed to Frank Jensen? Why?” Lina asked.
Tanja Fischer frowned. “That’s a good question. I didn’t like him. He’s very full of himself and thinks he knows more than you. He doesn’t seem to care what other people think of him, and he can be rather brusque.” She shrugged. “Quite a nerd, really. Superintelligent, a computer freak—and an absolute catastrophe when it comes to social interactions.”
Driving back to police headquarters, Lina pondered what she had just found out. Tanja Fischer had confirmed her suspicion that Philip Birkner was by no means the nice boy next door, adored by everyone. Instead, he seemed to have been a man who used his considerable charm to get what he wanted, and who would drop anyone without a second thought when he didn’t need that person anymore. He was a man whom women found attractive, and he didn’t seem to care if a woman was already in a relationship. Maybe somebody was upset with Philip for coming on to his wife. Could it be a murder out of jealousy? It wouldn’t be the first one in the history of mankind.
Waiting at a traffic light, Lina took a bite of the sandwich she had bought on the way. Her thoughts wandered to the matter of the data theft. Why had Philip Birkner immediately accused Frank Jensen? Had he even considered that it could also have been this other colleague, Daniel Vogler? Jensen had hinted that it could have been Bi
rkner himself, but Lina, like Tanja Fischer, thought this unlikely. Who would ruin his own company, which was apparently set to become a gold mine, by trying to make money through industrial espionage—especially when there was a rich girlfriend in the background? Lina shook her head. No, that was nonsense.
Sitting in a traffic jam in Eppendorf, she remembered that Lukas Birkner’s office was somewhere in the neighborhood. She looked for the address in her notebook, made two right turns, and parked soon afterward on a small side street. Maybe she could find out more from him about his brother’s friends, especially his girlfriends.
There was light in the small store that served as Lukas Birkner’s office. A simple sign saying “Insurance Agency” and Birkner’s name was stuck to the window, together with the logo of a large insurance conglomerate. The first room served as the reception area, one door led to a back office, and a second one to another office facing the street. Everything looked gloomy and shabby, maybe due to the dark office furniture or the shabby gray carpeting that still showed the impression of desks that used to stand there years ago. A well-groomed woman sat in front of a computer in the first room. Lina guessed her to be in her early thirties. She was pale and had dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t had enough sleep lately. Her gray pullover and black skirt suggested she might have known Philip Birkner and was honoring his memory.
When Lina entered, she looked up and said, “I’m sorry. We’re closed.”
Lina introduced herself and asked to talk to Lukas Birkner.
“My husband just left to see a client,” the woman said and sighed. “He insisted on being taken care of despite what happened to Philip.” Her smile was almost apologetic. “And I used the opportunity to catch up with what has accumulated while we were on vacation. If you’re self-employed, nobody cares if you have a death in the family.” She seemed to recognize that she was whining because she straightened and said, “Maybe I can be of some help. I’m Sonja Birkner, Lukas’s wife.”
Lina felt sorry for her. A murder in the family, in the middle of your vacation. On the other hand, was there ever a time when murder fit into your schedule?
“Maybe you can. May I?” Lina asked and, after a quick nod, sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. She took out her notebook. The woman across from her had a pleasant face. Her mouth was possibly a touch too large and her eyes had an inconspicuous color, somewhere between brown and blue. “Did you know your deceased brother-in-law well?”
Sonja Birkner leaned back in her chair. Since she had her hands in her lap, Lina couldn’t see them. “Well, the way you know a brother-in-law.” She was on her guard now.
“How long have you known him? Or rather, how long have you known your husband?”
“Forever. We went to school together, to high school.”
“So you’ve known both Birkners for a long time.”
“Well, actually, just Lukas. I was in the same class as he. Philip was one year above us and I hardly had anything to do with him. And I only started dating Lukas in our last year, when Philip was already gone.”
“Gone . . . You mean when he wasn’t in school anymore?”
The woman nodded. Her hands were now folded on the desk, in front of the keyboard.
“Wasn’t there a death . . .” Lina leafed through her notes. “. . . Julia Munz?”
Nodding again. “Yes, though I don’t know anything about it. We were in the same class, Julia and I, but we weren’t friends.”
“Is it true that Julia and Philip were once an item?”
“Yes, for quite a long time, in fact, even though they often separated and even were in other relationships.” She shrugged. “They were one of those couples who can’t live together but also can’t live apart.”
“But they weren’t together at the end, were they?”
“No.” Frau Birkner huffed a little. “Philip had something going with another girl, yet again, and this time Julia dumped him, shortly before the exit exams.” With a disapproving look she added, “Not that she was any better, if you know what I mean.” Sonja Birkner bit her lower lip as if she had already said too much.
“Julia Munz was killed after a party. Were you at the party, too?”
Frau Birkner shook her head. “We were in a few classes together, but we weren’t friends.” She hesitated. “We belonged to different cliques that had little to do with each other. Julia was often hanging out with people who were two or three years older than us.” She added with a shrug, “You know how it is.”
Lina could hear suppressed envy underneath the apparent indifference. She was willing to bet that Sonja Birkner—at the time she must have had a different name—would have loved to belong to the clique of Julia and Philip. Yet Lina decided to let it go.
“Did your husband and Philip have a good relationship?”
Sonja Birkner hesitated, for only a brief moment, but it was noticeable. “Yes.”
Lina smiled at her, but the suspicious look remained on Sonja Birkner’s face. “How about you? Did you get along with your brother-in-law?”
“Yes.” Sonja Birkner picked up a pen from the desk and put it in a cup with some others.
“He was apparently a very charming man,” Lina said, watching the woman.
“Yes, he could be quite nice.” Sonja Birkner still didn’t look at her.
“Could he also be different? Not nice?”
Philip Birkner’s sister-in-law drew a deep breath and looked at Lina. “I don’t know where you’re going with this. He was my brother-in-law, period. We saw each other every now and then, at family celebrations and similar stuff, but on the whole I had little contact with him.” She demonstratively focused on the screen in front of her. Her right hand moved toward the mouse, and then held on to it as if it were lending her support.
Lina smiled again, even though Frau Birkner still avoided her gaze. “Could you possibly give me names of friends . . . or girlfriends of Philip Birkner?”
“No,” the woman said. “As I already told you . . .” She looked up and Lina didn’t find out what she had already said. Instead, she heard the entrance door open behind her. She turned around and saw a man in front of her who was no taller than five feet seven. His hairline was receding, and his suit jacket didn’t manage to hide his beer belly. He had thin, mouse-gray, slightly greasy hair and a pale face, and he appeared nervous.
“Lukas, this is Frau Svenson from the police.”
Herr Birkner started to tremble and wiped his face with his hand. He looked miserable and Lina was ready to buy that he was mourning his brother deeply. “Have you . . . ,” he started, but his voice broke and he had to clear his throat. “Did you find the person who . . . Philip, my brother . . . I mean . . .”
“No, Herr Birkner,” Lina said soberly. “We still don’t know who did this to your family.”
It wasn’t obvious at first glance that Lukas and Philip Birkner were brothers. Even though Lina knew the older one only as a corpse, the difference was striking. While the tall, handsome Philip exuded the success he had made of himself, his brother didn’t seem to have been that lucky with his insurance agency. He looked at least ten years older than thirty-three, and must have aged that much even before the previous week. He scrutinized Lina while walking around the desk and then standing behind his wife. Sonja Birkner did not look at her husband, but stared at the desk in front of her. Her eyes were larger than before, almost like those of a deer. Lina knew this look. The woman was afraid.
She hesitated. It wasn’t her preference to interrogate Birkner about his brother’s sex life in front of his wife. She suddenly felt as if she had stepped into a minefield, where any step could cause a catastrophe.
“Herr Birkner, during our investigations we found out that your brother had a lover.” She stopped. “Did you know about it?”
The man was staring at her. His fingers, with
which he clutched the back of the desk chair, were white. “No, I don’t know anything about that. I also don’t believe it. It doesn’t sound like Philip.”
Sonja Birkner seemed to duck her head.
“But it’s the truth. I’ve spoken with the woman,” Lina said.
“Maybe she’s lying, to cast a bad light on Philip. Have you considered that angle?” he replied.
Lina pretended to consider his comment. She suddenly wished Max were at her side, Max with his clear, deep voice, Max who seemed to embody and radiate serenity. It didn’t matter what she was going to say; Lukas Birkner wouldn’t accept any fault in his brother. It wouldn’t matter how much proof she showed him. With every dark spot about Philip she was going to reveal, Lukas would retreat even more. He clung so blindly to the image he had created of his brother that he could not accept anything else. The only one who could get through to someone like Lukas Birkner would be Max. Lina was as sure of this as she was certain that Philip Birkner wasn’t the man his brother thought he was.
She drove back to headquarters deep in thought. She had to question this couple again. It had been obvious that Sonja Birkner, if not lying outright, had withheld a lot of information. And she was afraid of her husband. Had Philip Birkner hit on his brother’s wife as well? Had she gone along with it—and had Lukas found out?
Hanno listened with only half an ear when she tried to tell him what she’d found out. Sebastian had just finished with the teens from the subway station. “The patrol swept up three guys, all minors.” Hanno shook his head. “One of them kicked Sebastian in the shin. I could hear his screams all the way up here.”
Lina could vividly imagine the scene and was glad she wasn’t one of the boys. She had once seen how Sebastian treated a suspect who had dared to be rude to him.
Hanno cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go down and help him out with the boys.”
Lina stared at him in disbelief. “You want me to work with Sebastian . . . Listen, haven’t you noticed that we can’t stand each other?”
Dead Woods Page 13