The Murderer in Ruins

by Cay Rademacher

  Frau Hellinger coughed. ‘Obviously my husband immediately stopped production. Machinery was machinery. That’s what he said. He didn’t care much what he produced – as long as it was complicated enough to keep him interested.’

  ‘What does the firm make nowadays?’

  ‘Precision timepieces, time clocks for offices and factories. Timers for automated machinery.’

  ‘There’s a market for those again?’

  ‘Of course, lots of firms are trying to get production up and running again, despite all the problems. You’ll even find our clocks hanging on the walls of the British barracks and clubs.’

  That’s what it’s like to be a winner, thought Stave, and felt suddenly as if there were a wet leather overcoat weighing down his arms and shoulders. No matter who wins wars: winners do business. They have the bread, literally. They live in villas. The only difference here is that normally they do not vanish without trace.

  ‘What happened on the thirteenth of January?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. The night before we were late going to bed. My husband has always been an early riser; he’s never needed much sleep. He got up at his normal time; I remember that even though I was still half asleep. Then I fell back into a deep sleep and when I woke up it was about 10 a.m. and he was gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  Frau Hellinger blushed slightly. ‘My husband and I have been married for 30 years, we know each other very well – he often gets up before me, but he never ever leaves the house without saying goodbye. And if he’s going to visit a customer instead of the office, he always tells me.’

  ‘But on this occasion the house was empty when you got up?’

  ‘Yes, he had just gone.’

  ‘Had he taken anything with him? Money, for example?’

  Now she was blushing deeply. ‘Not as far as I know. We don’t keep a lot of cash in the house. And no, there are no valuable items missing. At least none that weren’t missing beforehand, if you know what I mean.’

  Stave glanced at the bare patches on the walls and nodded, then glanced down at his notebook to read the notes he had made at the Search Office.

  ‘You stated that he was wearing his winter coat. Navy-blue wool, hat, gloves and scarf.’

  ‘That was what was missing from the cloakroom. That was what he normally wore in winter.’

  ‘And his briefcase was missing too.’

  ‘He took it with him to work every morning.’

  ‘What did he keep in it?’

  Frau Hellinger shrugged her shoulders. ‘Documents, I imagine. I never looked.’

  ‘Diagrams? Contracts?’

  ‘I really have no idea.’

  Stave wondered if someone involved in the production of trigonometric calculators and complex timepieces had call to use thin lengths of wire. Wire loops. ‘Was the house door locked that morning, when you noticed your husband was missing?’

  Frau Hellinger looked surprised. ‘It was closed, but not locked.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Stave and closed his notebook.

  ‘There’s something else.’

  He looked up.

  She hesitated, taking a deep breath. ‘When I started looking around I found a screwed-up piece of paper on the floor in the cloakroom where his overcoat normally hung. I didn’t notice it at first; I thought it was just something the cleaning lady had missed. But later, when my husband was nowhere to be found and I began to look for clues as to what had happened, I picked it up.’

  She opened the drawer of a commode and took out a piece of paper the size of a hand. Squared paper, torn down one side, clearly hastily torn out of a notebook, Stave reckoned. The sort of notebook used by engineers or technicians for doing calculations or drawing sketches.

  He took it from her and examined it. The innumerable creases like a net across the hatched page showed how scrunched up it had been. One side was blank, on the other, a single word, scrawled in pencil, in English: ‘Bottleneck.’

  She stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘I can’t speak any English but a friend translated it for me.’

  ‘The neck of a bottle.’

  ‘It was obviously thrown aside in haste, but it is definitely my husband’s writing. What on earth does it mean?’

  ‘I’m wondering that myself,’ Stave said.

  The chief inspector took his leave, slowly and in a hurry at the same time. It would have been nice to stay a little longer. Every fibre of his being had enjoyed the warmth inside the villa, the opportunity to take his coat off, sit down and drink some hot tea. He would have liked to close his eyes, fall asleep. On the other hand, he was intrigued by this new discovery. He needed to talk it over with his4 colleagues, exchange ideas, test the plausibility of crazy theories.

  He walked quickly, limping, but not even noticing it. Bottleneck. Bottle. Neck. Coincidence. What could it mean? Is Hellinger the killer? But why leave the note? Why an English word? Or was the industry boss just the killer’s accomplice? Or maybe a witness?

  All of a sudden Stave stopped. If Hellinger wanted to disappear that morning, would he have dropped the note by accident? Unlikely. But if, as his wife believed, he had scribbled the word in haste, crumpled the note up and dropped it when he was putting his coat on, surely that meant he only had a few moments? And that he wasn’t alone? So who had been with Hellinger in the villa that morning? And did the magnate go willingly with whoever it was? Or was he abducted? That was what his wife seemed to believe. But who would want to abduct him?

  By the time he got to his office Stave was still lost in thought. He sat down at his desk and looked again at the piece of paper that he had managed to persuade Frau Hellinger to give him, though she had been reluctant to do so. Perhaps she thought it might be the last link she would have with her husband, the chief inspector reflected. She might well be right.

  ‘Drum up MacDonald and Maschke for me,’ he shouted to his secretary through the closed door.

  He caught the smell of cold tobacco before the door even opened. Maschke came in. A few minutes later MacDonald also arrived.

  He gave both men a quick summary of what he had been up to. Maschke thought long and hard and then nodded appreciatively. MacDonald just stared at him attentively. Stave returned the look.

  ‘Bottleneck,’ he said at last. ‘That’s what’s on the piece of paper. Just that.’ He showed it to him.

  The lieutenant looked pale. ‘What could it mean?’ he whispered.

  The chief inspector held up his hands. ‘It means you’re going to have to ask around amongst your colleagues again. It might have something to do with our murderer. Then again maybe not, but in any case the disappearance of Hellinger is odd. And this is the only lead we have. An English lead.’

  MacDonald let his head drop so that they could no longer see his face. Difficult to make out what it meant, Stave thought to himself. Was he ashamed because the clue pointed to one of his compatriots? Or was it anger at a German policeman accusing an Englishman?

  MacDonald looked up, his face expressing agreement. ‘You’re right, Chief Inspector. An English lead. I’ll get on to it.’

  The Briton was just getting to his feet when there was a knock on the door. It was Erna Berg, who gave him a quick smile before turning to Stave.

  ‘There’s a lady here who wants to speak to you.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘An Anna von Veckinhausen. She says you know her.’

  Stave ignored the curious glances from MacDonald and Maschke and nodded goodbye to them. The vice squad man squeezed past the dark-haired woman outside without saying a word. MacDonald was more polite, waited for her to come in, greeted her and then closed the door behind him.

  At last, thought Stave. He indicated the chair on the other side of his desk. Involuntarily he glanced at her hands and noticed a bare patch on the ring finger of her right hand. A missing wedding ring? Divorced? Widowed? Or was it nothing to do with a ring at all? Maybe it was a healed wound made by a loop of wire she�
��d been holding in her hands? I’m getting paranoid, the inspector realised.

  Her almond-shaped eyes were watching him carefully. Maybe she regrets having come here, Stave wondered. He let her take her time.

  Anna von Veckinhausen sat down on the chair opposite him, her right arm folded diagonally across her chest, her hand on her left shoulder. The same defensive pose. Then she forced a smile.

  ‘You know why I’m here.’

  ‘I have my suspicions.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you everything.’

  ‘When I first questioned you, you told me you took the path through the rubble to get from Collau Strasse to Lappenbergs Allee. The second time you told me you had been going along Lappenbergs Allee and took the path to get to Collau Strasse, the opposite of what you said the first time.’

  ‘I shan’t underestimate you again,’ she murmured.

  Stave suppressed a smile. ‘So what were you really doing out there in the ruins on the night of the twenty-fifth of January? And what did you see?’

  ‘I didn’t see anything in the rubble on the evening of the twenty-fifth of January. In fact, I wasn’t even there.’

  Stave opened his notebook and leafed through this scribbles. ‘But you reported the murder on the twenty-fifth? At the nearest police station.’

  ‘But that wasn’t when I found the body.’

  ‘So when did you find it?’

  ‘Five days earlier, on the twentieth of January. I was coming along the footpath in the rubble, from Collau Strasse as it happens, though that hardly matters now. I saw the body, but didn’t report it to the police.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I was afraid. I didn’t want any trouble. I’ve never had anything to do with the police in my life. I’m not from Hamburg. I don’t know anyone here who would help me if things got difficult. I thought I could just leave it to somebody else. There was nothing anybody could have done for the dead man anyhow.’

  ‘But nobody else reported it.’

  ‘It was unbelievable. I read the newspapers, expecting each day to see a report about a naked corpse. Nothing. Eventually I realised that the body still hadn’t been discovered. It wasn’t really that surprising. Probably very few people used that path. And even if anyone did, they wouldn’t necessarily spot the body. It was lying in a bomb crater, a bit to one side of the path. I started feeling guilty. After five days I could take it no longer. I reported it to the police and let on that I had just discovered it. Ever since I’ve been thinking about the lie and wondering if it might somehow have hindered the search for the murderer. So I came here to tell you everything, I just hope it’s not too late.’

  The chief inspector sat there silently for a while. Then he said, ‘If it wasn’t easy to spot the body from the path, how did you come across it?’

  ‘I was looting,’ she said. ‘I had left the path and was searching the rubble.’

  Stave didn’t react.

  Anna von Veckinhausen gave a sad smile. ‘I wasn’t looking for what you might think,’ she continued. ‘I come from Königsberg, as you can probably guess from my name. A noble family. The usual estate, the usual education. The usual hasty flight.’

  ‘When did you arrive in Hamburg?’

  ‘I fled in January 1945. On the Wilhelm Gustloff.4 When it sank, I was picked up by a minesweeper and taken to Mecklenburg. From there I made my way onward as best I could and got here in May 1945.’

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘On my own,’ she answered quickly, decisively.

  Stave stared down at the pale line on her finger. He would have liked to know if she had been alone when she boarded the Wilhelm Gustloff. And if she had got to the west before the Red Army reached the east.

  ‘And ever since you have lived in a Nissen hut on the Elbe canal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s a long way from Lappenbergs Allee.’

  ‘I was a specialist looter. Most people are after wood or bits of metal or electrical goods. I was looking for antiques.’

  The chief inspector couldn’t believe his ears. ‘In the bomb wreckage of ordinary people’s rental apartments?’

  ‘Obviously they weren’t villas with art collections hanging on the walls. But almost every family has one inherited piece of some sort in their apartment. And each block of ruins once housed hundreds of apartments. You wouldn’t believe what you can find, if you have a trained eye. Medals from the Kaiser’s time, silver coffee spoons, grandfather’s pocket watch.’

  ‘And you have a trained eye?’

  ‘I grew up amongst valuable antiques. And over the past few years, I have trained myself to spot things like that, often bent, grimy, inconspicuous, lying amidst bricks and tiles.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I clean them up, write on a piece of paper what I know about them: age, origin, et cetera – and then I sell them to British officers. Or to Hamburg business people who’ve come through the war okay.’

  The word ‘bottleneck’ flashed across Stave’s mind. ‘Do you sell valuable bottles? Old glass? Perfume bottles or stuff like that?’

  She gave him a surprised look. ‘No. You don’t normally find stuff like that in these ruins. At least not undamaged items.’

  ‘Do you know a Dr Martin Hellinger? An industrialist from Hamburg-Marienthal? Maybe a customer of yours?’ He showed her the man’s photograph.

  ‘Never seen him. Never heard the name either. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It was just a passing thought. Had you just sold something on the black market when we arrested you? You were carrying 500 Reichsmarks.’

  ‘I’d just met a British officer outside the Garrison Theatre next to the station, and sold him an oil painting. A piece of colourful kitsch, German pine trees, treetop view, you know the sort of thing. But he liked it. I was on the way home when I got caught up in your raid. It was pure chance.’

  Stave made a note; MacDonald needed to look into it. ‘So on the evening of the twentieth of January you were looking for kitsch paintings and old pocket watches in the ruins off Lappenbergs Allee?’

  ‘You have to survive somehow. It was the first time I had been there. It’s a long way from the Elbe canal, but I hoped to find something that would make the trip worthwhile.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Didn’t have time. As soon as I got there I saw this shadow move on a wall.’

  ‘Shadow?’

  ‘A shape. It was dusk already. I’d underestimated the distance and got there later than I intended. It wasn’t exactly a person I saw, more a movement. Do you know what I mean? Something threatening, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. I hid behind a pile of rubble.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was new to the area. I was looting. That’s reason enough, don’t you think?’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘I waited for a bit until I thought there was no more sign of movement. Then I got to my feet, walked on and came across the naked corpse. You know the rest.’

  ‘Can you remember anything about this shape you saw? What it was wearing? Was it big, small, fat, thin? A man? A child?’

  ‘It wasn’t a child, that’s for sure. Not especially big, not tiny either. More like large and thin. At the time I thought it was a man. But it might also have been a woman. Whoever it was had a coat on.’

  ‘A wool overcoat? A man’s coat? A Wehrmacht greatcoat?’

  ‘A long, dark coat. Black or dark brown.’

  ‘Or dark blue?’

  ‘Possibly. There was a scarf around the face, or a headscarf. Or maybe even a cap with cloth wrapped around it.’

  ‘Do you remember anything else? Shoes for example? Hands? Was the person wearing gloves?’

  ‘I didn’t notice.’

  ‘Did you hear anything? Any sound at all?’

  ‘Sound?’

  ‘Like someone calling out or being beaten, cries for help. Perhaps muffled?’

  Anna von Veckinhausen shook her head. ‘On the contrary,
now that you mention it. It was quiet, unnaturally quiet. I think it was this weird silence that made me nervous. That was why I was scared, even though I could hardly see the figure.’

  Stave closed his eyes and thought hard. Anna von Veckinhausen had arrived at the ruins relatively late. It was getting dark already, the light would have been bad, visibility poor. Perhaps that was the best time of day for looters, just light enough for a trained eye to spot something in the rubble, but dark enough for people not to notice you.’

  She sees the murderer, at least in outline. Then she finds the body. She doesn’t report it to the police – maybe because she’s afraid to, like she said. Also because she doesn’t want to invite awkward questions that would reveal her to be a looter.

  Stave believed her story. It all fitted together. If the shape she had seen was the murderer, then Anna von Veckinhausen must have happened along just after the crime had been committed. The old man was already dead, and probably had already been stripped. That meant it had still been daylight when the old man set out, maybe indeed crossing the ruins on the footpath. Or he had been killed somewhere else and carried there by the killer. But would the murderer try something like that before it was dark?’

  ‘Did this unknown figure see you?’

  She hesitated, put her arm across her body again. ‘I had hidden quickly. I moved into cover, as a soldier would say. I had the impression that the figure did the same. But I can’t be sure.’

  Shit, Stave thought. If that’s true, not only was Anna von Veckinhausen the only witness to the murder, but the murderer knew there had been a witness.

  ‘Anything else come back to you?’

  She thought for a minute. ‘There was a smell in the air,’ she said eventually. ‘In this cold air, it doesn’t pay to breathe in too deeply, but even so I got the impression that there was a smell of tobacco in the ruins.’

  ‘The unknown figure was a smoker?’

  ‘Not necessarily, I mean, I didn’t see a cigarette, no glow, but there was just this smell of tobacco. And then it went away.’

  A carton of cigarettes, Stave pondered. Maybe the old man had a load of cigarettes and that’s why he was killed. Maybe it was a mugging, for goods to sell on the black market.’