“Yes,” he said, subdued. “Yes, Boss, I know.”
Herz smiled and touched the young man’s elbow.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”
Then they were there, and it all happened fast. And unspectacularly—too unspectacularly for Arthur’s liking.
It didn’t begin too badly. They entered the bar and looked around. No familiar faces. The door to the terrace was open, and there were a few tables out there as the sun was still pleasantly warm.
Arthur recognized the woman immediately. His heart began to beat a little more loudly.
She was sitting at a table by the door—a woman in her early thirties, face turned to the Indian summer sun, soaking up the last vestiges of warmth before the gray of the approaching fall and winter. The wisps of smoke from her cigarette rose into the light, dissipating like fine dust motes.
Huh, thought Arthur with a slight feeling of regret, smoking’s just bad for your health; so bad for your health that—zap—it’ll get you. What a waste.
But she suspected nothing. Her eyes were closed as if she was waiting for something, for someone. It was as if she had all the time in the world, as if nothing or no one could want anything of her. She was an angel, beautiful, innocent.
Opposite her and turned slightly away, with his back to the police officers, sat a man with a shaved head. He was a little older than she was. He looked tense, restless, nervous, his head turning back and forth, his foot tapping the ground, beating out a rhythm that only he knew.
Arthur tapped Herz on the shoulder. Herz turned to him with a questioning look, and Arthur indicated the terrace door with his head.
“OK,” Herz said softly. “Let’s go. Quietly—we don’t want to disturb the other customers.”
Slowly, silently, they approached the table, their right hands poised inconspicuously over their holsters—out of sight of other patrons but ready to remove the safeties rapidly if needed, if the situation escalated. Their left hands held their IDs.
Felix stayed in the background to allow Arthur to step forward, a shadow falling in the path of Kristin’s sun. She opened her eyes in irritation and blinked.
“Hi, Bonnie,” Arthur said with a smile. “Lovely to see you again.”
87
The computer spewed a lot of information onto the screen. Hansen sighed. Looked like a lot of work. Ah well, such was life. He thought briefly of his approaching holiday. Two weeks in Spain in the late September sun. He immediately felt better.
He quickly scrolled through the reports. He was convinced it wouldn’t produce anything, but it was better than sitting there with a thousand thoughts about Gertrud Rabinsky’s murder and Lilli Brendler’s disappearance swirling around his head. It was a good distraction.
At first it was mostly uninteresting. A successful man, this guy—respected, wealthy. A perfect life. Almost. And then . . . suddenly . . . that little twist, that little niggle.
88
The detectives had everything under control. Kristin sat frozen in her seat, while Tonio jumped up.
Felix directed the proceedings in a sharp voice. “Police! Sit back down! Hands on the table! You’re under arrest!”
Arthur pacified the other customers and the staff, showed his ID, and said loud and clear that they were carrying out a police operation. There was no reason to panic. Everything was under control.
Then he asked the head waiter for a quiet room where they could talk in peace with the pair under arrest. With a sigh of relief that the excitement was over, the head waiter guided the four troublemakers into a room that smelled as though it was a staff smoking room.
“Take a seat,” Herz said, showing Kristin and Tonio where to sit. Already the cogs of Kristin’s cool legal brain had begun to turn.
“What exactly are we accused of?” she asked. “Is it a crime to enjoy a coffee in peace?”
“No, no,” Herz said in a firm voice. “That’s certainly allowed, provided you don’t also have any criminal intentions, or you haven’t previously committed a crime such as murder.”
Tonio leapt up. “What? Murder? You can’t believe I’d—”
“We do believe it, yes,” Herz said slowly, although for some reason he was no longer so certain. “You’ve already avoided arrest once by running away. We normally take that as a clear admission of guilt.”
“That’s garbage! Sheer garbage!”
“Prove me wrong.”
Kristin stepped in now. “Since when has it been the norm in this country for respectable citizens to be required to prove their innocence? As far as I know, the opposite is true. You have to prove our guilt, and you can’t do that! Because we’re not guilty.”
Herz suppressed a smile. A fierce young woman, he thought.
“Easy,” he said calmly. “Easy, now! Let’s just talk calmly to one another. That’ll get us a whole lot further.” He paused briefly. “So, what are you doing here? What, or rather who, were you waiting for here?”
They looked at each other, shrugged.
“Nothing,” they said together. “No one. We were having a coffee here, enjoying the sun.”
“Listen,” Herz said, gradually becoming harsher, “we don’t have all the time in the world. So, once again: What were you doing here? What or who were you waiting for here?”
They were silent for a moment before Tonio asked a question of his own.
“What on earth gives you the idea that I . . . could have murdered Gertrud Rabinsky?”
Felix smiled. “Well, that tells me that you do know what all this is about. Now, let’s begin calmly at the beginning. So you admit that you knew Frau Rabinsky.”
He hesitated. “Knew? No. You can’t really say that.”
“Well, it seems you knew her well enough to have—how shall I put it?—stalked her a little. I assume you’re not really going to deny it.”
Shit, Tonio thought. Shit. He shook his head uncertainly. “Now, you shouldn’t take that the wrong way.”
“So, in what way should it be taken?”
He said nothing, suddenly aware of how bad his position was.
Felix continued, “We’ve searched your apartment. And found a whole load of things. A whole load of evidence that suggests you’ve created a veritable list of grievances against Gertrud Rabinsky and Hanna Umlauf.”
Tonio shook his head in amazement. “What garbage! Why would I have done that?”
“Because they effectively took your father from you.”
Tonio laughed out loud. “Bullshit! No one took my father from me. He did that himself. I never knew him, never even saw him.”
“So what was your motive for killing Gertrud Rabinsky?”
Tonio jumped up, stretching out his arms in despair. “None! Please believe me! I didn’t have a motive. And I didn’t kill her either! You’ve got to believe me!”
“Sit down,” Felix said firmly. “We haven’t got to believe anything you say. I hope you realize how serious your situation is. You should cooperate with us.”
Tonio slumped into his chair, a picture of misery.
“I’ll cooperate,” he said. “I know when I’ve lost.”
“Good,” Felix said. “I’m listening.”
Tonio turned toward him.
“I watched her. Yes, that’s true. It became a bit like an addiction. Suddenly . . . you get involved in the life of another person and then you can’t tear yourself away.” He shook his head, as if unable to believe it himself. “It takes on a life of its own, everything starts moving so incredibly fast.”
“Why were you watching her? Were you looking for something you could blackmail her with? And then, when you saw that wasn’t working, you lost your nerve and grabbed the knife that was already there in the kitchen?”
Tonio shook his head again.
“No,” he said. “No, honestly, that’s not true. There was nothing I could have blackmailed her with. I simply wanted to . . . hear her story. I wanted to hear something about my
father. I wanted to know what happened. How he died. How it was possible to drown in a sea like the Aegean.” He broke off, laughed softly, a little bitterly. “I wanted to know whether he ever talked about me. Or about my mother. What we meant to him. Whether we were ever anything to him. Anything at all.”
He fell silent.
Felix felt Tonio’s nebulous pain and could suddenly understand why this lack of memories haunted him, why he wanted to know about his father, and when the opportunity arose, he . . .
Felix believed him. Gradually. Increasingly.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me from the beginning.”
And Tonio told his story: about the inheritance; about how this family suddenly erupted into his life, a family that was new to him, unknown and unexpected; and about how, at first, fear had been greater than pleasure.
He told them how all these people had suddenly emerged. First his father and then the two women. He’d been amazed at what a deeply rooted part of his father’s life they’d been. He sensed that their traces ran more deeply and more forcefully than those of his mother or himself. If he were honest, neither he nor his mother had left any traces at all in his father’s life.
That had hurt in a way that had taken him completely by surprise, because he had never imagined it would affect him like that. But now it propelled him to look into the past. He wanted to know, know, know.
And so he sent that letter to Hanna, who was living in France. And forced his way into Gertrud’s life.
“And with your actions you set a lot of wheels in motion,” Felix said.
Tonio nodded and hung his head. “Yes, I certainly did.”
“Where’s Lilli?” Felix asked.
“Lilli?” Tonio looked up, and smiled. “My little sister?”
“Yes,” Felix said. “That’s exactly who I mean.”
“I have no idea,” Tonio said. “Honestly! No idea. She came. We talked. She left.”
“Where did she go?”
“She wanted to look for Hanna.”
“And where’s Hanna?”
“I don’t know that, either,” Tonio said. “I really don’t! No idea!”
Felix nodded. And he believed him. There was no reason not to believe him.
“But you saw something that night.”
Tonio sighed, glanced at Kristin.
“Canada,” he murmured. “We can forget Canada.”
She said nothing. A scenario began to take shape in Felix’s mind.
“Doesn’t matter,” Felix said. “It’s beautiful here, too. The trees change color in fall here, too.” He smiled. “So, what did you see? And, most importantly, who did you see? Who did you see that you wanted to blackmail now?”
Tonio sighed.
“A lot,” he said. “I saw a lot.”
89
Hansen leaned back in his seat and stared at the screen. He was completely stunned. Fifty thousand was not an insignificant amount. Not at all. Having or not having fifty thousand made a difference. A big difference, Hansen thought. He found it remarkable that it could be obtained so easily. Just like that. And to get it from a source from which there had allegedly been no contact at all—no contact at all for years. Now he knew that wasn’t true—they’d lied. There it was, just six months ago—fifty thousand.
Hansen leaned back, tapped his fingertips together, rocked a little on his chair, and thought about it.
So, he thought, I think fifty thousand means something happened, something very powerful!
He picked up his cell phone, typed a text, and sent it twice.
90
“He’s in his room,” Tonio said resignedly, waving a hand toward the window. “At least, he hasn’t checked out yet. We’d arranged to meet him here, but the asshole didn’t show up. Instead . . .”
“. . . we did.” Arthur completed his sentence for him. Tonio nodded.
Herz had gone over to the window. “Over there? In his room?”
What was all this about? Some kind of distraction technique? Was this someone wanting to take the pressure off himself with vague accusations and wild speculation? But Herz had lived and seen and heard too much in his time. He wasn’t about to fall for anything easily.
“Yes,” Tonio said, “in the hotel. You can see the back from here. The Babenberger. It’s a luxury hotel for the upper class. Don’t you know it?”
Felix deliberately ignored the sarcastic undertone. The Babenberger? He thought for a moment.
The Babenberger. He knew it, of course, and he’d come across it recently, he was sure of it, but when?
There was a sudden beep from Felix’s cell phone. He opened the text. Hansen. Stating that fifty thousand had been shifted from one account to another—quietly and more or less secretly. There was no business transaction connected to it, at least not one that a quick search had shown up. Hansen found it a little strange, given that they’d claimed there’d been zero contact for years. The money had changed hands six months ago, which meant a lie or two had been told. What could be the reason for paying someone that much money?
Maybe he was mistaken and it had little—or nothing—to do with the case. Or maybe it did. And now Belitz had also disappeared—turned off his cell phone.
Felix looked again at the back of the hotel.
Belitz? Jonas Belitz? Hanna Umlauf’s worried husband?
And he suddenly remembered where he’d recently heard about the Babenberger. He turned.
“Belitz?” he asked. “Are we talking about Jonas Belitz?”
Tonio raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Yes. The very man. That’s exactly who we’re talking about.”
91
“Fifty thousand euros,” Franza said, whistling softly through her teeth as she closed the text. “That’s quite a sum of money, don’t you think, Herr Brendler?”
He glanced at her, and she could see that he knew what she was talking about. He turned away in silence.
Dorothee looked from one to the other. “What are you talking about?”
“You should ask your husband,” Franza said. “I think he could explain it better than I can.”
“What’s happening? What do you want?” Hans said. “Shouldn’t you be spending your time solving my daughter’s murder instead of speculating wildly about things that have nothing to do with you, things you don’t understand?”
He was angry, sad, bewildered—all at once.
“So can you explain it to me, please?” Franza said.
“Yes,” Dorothee said. “Explain it!”
He closed his eyes briefly and shrugged. “Jonas called me about six months ago. He wanted to meet me in Munich.”
“What? What are you saying?” Dorothee turned and faced him. “Why didn’t you tell me? What did he want? Money, it seems!”
He made to stroke her hair, but she turned her head away, and his arm hung in the air for a second as if in free fall.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” he said quietly. “And yes, he wanted money. And I gave it to him.”
“Why?” Franza asked. “Why did he want so much money?”
Dorothee laughed scornfully. “That’s nothing. We’ve paid a lot more than that before.”
“He wanted it for Hanna, as a kind of security,” Brendler said, sitting down. “He told me he was very ill and didn’t have long to live. Said he had debts from the gallery and that he could cover those debts with my money. That way, at least Hanna wouldn’t have any financial worries if he . . .”
“Extortion, then,” said Franza thoughtfully. “What with?”
Brendler shook his head. “No, not extortion. I gave him the money willingly. It was for Hanna, after all.”
He looked at his wife.
“But you’d already paid him a lot more?” Silence.
“It’s all come to this,” Dorothee said flatly. “It’s all come to this!” She turned to her husband. “Tell her. You tell her. I can’t do it anymore.”
He nodded, put his head in his hands.
> “Jonas married Hanna and I couldn’t prevent it. I would have, if I could. But it wasn’t in my power.”
“Why did you want to prevent it?”
“Because it wasn’t right. Because . . . because it just wasn’t right.”
“You’ll have to explain that to me,” Franza said, leaning forward. “What do you mean by that?”
He said nothing. He simply sat there, staring at the table. Dorothee began to talk.
“My husband paid him money to pacify him. To keep quiet. Leave us alone. That was what he used to buy the gallery.”
“So much money? Enough for him to finance a gallery? So much hush money?”
Brendler raised his head. “He turned up right after Lilli was born. You could call it chance or fate. Whatever. In any case, he was suddenly standing there at the door when Hanna’s baby was three days old. Hanna was sick in her room and Gertrud had already taken the baby for herself, had already . . . become her mother. It didn’t take long for Jonas to see what was going on. He was never short of imagination. What could I do?” He laughed bitterly. “He was my best friend. From way back when we were kids. We did everything together. I met my wife through him.”
He gave her a long look. “We lived together when we were students. They were good times. Afterward, I came here and worked in my father’s law office, while he tried to establish himself as a freelance photographer. He didn’t do too well at first, but he didn’t mind. He was a survivor. He always managed somehow, living here or there. Eventually he went to London, made a name for himself, and earned a lot of money. But he always visited us, again and again during that time. We never knew when he’d come. It was always a surprise. He’d stay with us, sometimes only for a couple of days, sometimes for a few weeks. That was also OK. The house was big enough and we liked it. They were good times. We were like extended family.”
No, Franza thought, an illusion of it at best.
“He watched the girls grow up,” Brendler continued. “He liked them, they liked him. He didn’t have any children himself, so it was always a big deal whenever he came. They liked it when he stayed. He involved them in his photography, and that was the kick start for Hanna’s career. He was a good friend. The best a man could wish for. Really. For all of us. But then he arrived at the wrong time.”
Raven Sisters (Franza Oberwieser Book 2) Page 29