He set off down the central spoke and back toward the cavern in which they had first found the body. He deliberately kept his head down, his eyes on the dirt path. He needed to see it from Wouters’s perspective—from the proper angle—and that was possible only from inside Mary Koop’s cavern.
Hoffner made his way through various entryways and along several tunnels before he reached the opening and headed for the far wall. He found Koop’s indented outline in the dirt: six weeks of occupation had kept it fresh. The little ridges of mud seemed to ripple in the torchlight. Even now, her frame looked as if it had been a part of the flooring, all along. Hoffner took in a deep breath and turned around.
“My God,” he whispered.
The design was everywhere. Hoffner could have closed his eyes and traced its path without ever once taking a false step. He moved back to the cavern’s opening and felt himself being pulled into the pattern, not in the way he had felt on the streets of Berlin—not in some conjured reimagining of the ruts and curves of a woman’s back—but in the actual carvings themselves: he turned, and the tunnels turned with him; he reached out for a crossing line, and the wall gave way to an opening that cut across his path; he ran his hands along the walls and felt the cold ridges of human flesh. He had missed it before, too many distractions, too much to get in his way. Now he was a part of the diameter-cut.
The edge of the design ended abruptly at the entryway to a tunnel that led back to the central cavern. Beyond the entryway, two steel support beams were rooted into the walls directly across from each other. Hoffner stepped through the entryway and continued down the tunnel and away from the design, back toward the ladder. He found another set of steel beams perhaps twenty meters on. A third pair appeared, again at the same interval.
Here the construction was almost identical to those in the Senefelderplatz and the Tiergarten. Hoffner turned around and quickly headed back to where the Wouters design began.
He started in through the entryway: twenty meters, forty, sixty. There were no steel beams. The tunnels here were not a part of the Master Draft design. They had been added on, and quickly: too quickly to afford the arrival of the steel beams.
Someone had given Wouters a home, the only one capable of making him feel safe: sculpted in the perfect image of his own twisted mind.
Hoffner was suddenly struck by the word. This was perfect. This was Wouters’s ideal. Of course. Another piece of the puzzle flashed into focus.
Hoffner found himself running back to the cavern, back through the opening, back to the outline of Mary Koop’s body. He stepped inside the small ridges and drove the pick into a wooden beam above his head. The torch glowed freely as he pulled his notebook and pen from his coat pocket and began to sketch the diameter-cut, one last time. The lines danced on the page from the light, but it was there. He drew an X for the spot in which he was now standing, and stared down at the page.
The “optimal point of origin.” He had found it. Mary Koop was his starting point. All he needed, now, was to understand the design’s flow, and he would have Paul Wouters.
Hoffner missed the call by five minutes.
“He told you nothing?” he said as he pulled Wouters’s original sketches from the filing cabinet. He was moving quickly. He needed to see Kepner.
“Nothing,” said Sascha.
Fichte said, “The boy was remarkably convincing.” They were both caught up in Hoffner’s impatience.
“Good.” Hoffner placed the sheets in his coat pocket and pointed to Fichte. “You and I have a man to see.” He then pointed to Sascha. “And you need to get home.” He saw the disappointment in Sascha’s eyes. “I know, but even I can’t stretch the rules that far.” It was all he needed to say.
Out on the Alex, they found a taxi for Sascha, then one for themselves. Hoffner ran through an abbreviated version of the afternoon’s events on the ride out. Any theories he might have come up with about the directors from Ganz-Neurath, or the reappearance of the second carver, or even the design of the Rosenthaler station, he kept to himself. Hoffner knew that Fichte would have had trouble processing the information. He was having trouble with it himself. Best, then, to concentrate on Wouters, for both of them.
Kepner showed no surprise when the two Kripomen appeared at his door: the brevity of the telephone conversation had told him to expect visitors. He brought them into his sitting room, where Herr Brenner was already waiting. Hoffner noticed several pages of sketches laid out across the coffee table. Kepner had worked quickly.
“The three on the far left,” said Kepner. Hoffner was already scanning the sheets. Kepner told the men to sit. “I believe those are what you are looking for.”
Fichte spoke up as Hoffner reached for the pages: “Perhaps Herr Brenner would care to wait in another room?”
Hoffner had to stifle the urge to upbraid Fichte in front of the two men. He took the sheets. “My apologies for my Assistent, Herr Kepner. He is—overly cautious.”
Kepner waved Hoffner off. “Better that than the other, Herr Kommissar.”
Out of nowhere, Fichte rose to his feet. He snapped his head in a bow. “My apologies, Herr Brenner.”
Hoffner thought the gesture a bit extravagant, but he knew it would keep Fichte quiet for the rest of the interview. Brenner nodded quietly.
“It’s a Bruges design,” said Kepner. “I have yet to determine an optimal point of origin—” He stopped himself. “You understand what I mean by this?”
“Yes, mein Herr. The starting point.”
“Exactly. These are only rough sketches. Anything more detailed will take more time.”
It was odd, seeing the design drawn with such precision: a woman’s flesh created its own imperfections; Hoffner’s rendering had been “crude” by Kepner’s estimation. This, however, showed the true artistry and intricacy of the pattern. Lines and turns Hoffner had never imagined filled the little sketches. He wondered if, perhaps in his haste, he had missed the design in one of Wouters’s pages. It hardly mattered now; he was about to show Kepner where to find his optimal point of origin.
“What if you were to start here, mein Herr?” Hoffner placed the sheet on the table and pointed to the spot that approximated the point where Mary Koop’s body had been found.
Kepner pulled out his glasses and leaned forward. He had not been anticipating suggestions from the Kripo. Fichte seemed equally surprised. “From where?” said Kepner. Hoffner kept his finger on the sheet as he turned it toward Kepner. Kepner gazed down with an uncertain stare until his eyes began to move through the sketch. “All right,” he said absently. Without looking up, he pulled a short pencil from his pocket and, very slowly, began to create another replica, another possible route for the design. He continued to glance back at the other drawings he had made, along with a list of calculations he had written out on a separate page. “Is this a guess, Herr Inspector?” he said as he continued to draw.
“An educated one, mein Herr.”
“Yes, I imagine it would be.” Kepner hummed in a monotone as he went back and forth between drawings and figures.
Progress was slow going—Kepner kept at it for nearly twenty minutes—as Hoffner began to see what he needed. If Mary Koop had been the optimal point of origin in the station design, then the Rosenthaler Platz—Wouters’s home—had to be the origin in the city design. What else could it be? It was the one site that Wouters had meant to keep pure, or at least beyond the reach of death. The preserving grease had said as much. That was why it was the deviation; and that was why it held the key.
Hoffner tried to reconstruct the path of Wouters’s victims in his head, taking Rosenthaler Platz as his starting point: southeast to Mnz Strasse, due west to Oranienburger, northeast to Prenzlauer, west to Blowplatz, and finally north to Senefelderplatz. All the while, he continued to watch Kepner. With each turn of the pencil, Kepner was following the identical shifts in direction. Hoffner rarely let himself give in to moments like these. Now his heart began to accelerate as Ke
pner drew closer and closer to the sixth knot.
“There,” said Hoffner.
Kepner looked up, unsure why he was being asked to stop. “It’s hardly finished, Herr Inspector.”
“That was your sixth knot?”
Kepner went back and counted. “The sixth that required a direction change. Yes.”
Hoffner stared across at the design. “Southeast,” he said to himself.
“Excuse me, Herr Inspector?”
Hoffner refocused. “Nothing, mein Herr.”
“‘Nothing,’” Kepner echoed cautiously. “And this is what you needed?”
Hoffner thought for a moment. If Wouters—and not the second carver—was consistent, he would be depositing his next victim sometime in the next three or four days. There was little chance that a body was already waiting for them at that sixth knot. Even so, Hoffner had no intention of making a return trip to Charlottenburg. He told Kepner to continue.
When Kepner began to make the turn away from the eighth knot, Hoffner stopped him again. “There. That’s fine, mein Herr.”
Kepner glanced up. “You’re sure this time?” Hoffner nodded. “Good.” Kepner dropped the pencil and sat back. He removed his glasses and rubbed two fingers on the bridge of his nose.
Hoffner picked up the pencil. “May I?” he said. Kepner looked over; he was still blinking the strain from his eyes. He nodded indifferently.
Hoffner took a clean sheet and began to sketch Kepner’s design, but on a much larger scale: large enough to conform to the map that was hanging back on his office wall. Hoffner finished and slid the drawing across the table. Kepner had been watching him. He now leaned in to take a closer look.
“The dimensions are still accurate?” said Hoffner.
Kepner continued to examine the sheet: “As I said, Inspector, these drawings are rough. I would need other tools to make a perfectly accurate rendering, but this, I suspect, is as close as any I’ve constructed.” He slid the sheet back to Hoffner. “I doubt this mesh would ever be configured on such a large scale, but then again, I doubt many Kripo officers would be as consumed by lace as you are.” Kepner raised a hand to stop Hoffner from answering. “I don’t want to know the details, Herr Inspector. I’m tired, that’s all.”
Herr Brenner stood. “You have everything you need?” Brenner might have been a cold fish, but he was a cold fish devoted to his father-in-law.
“Yes, mein Herr.” Hoffner began to shuffle the papers together. “May I take these?” He continued to stack them.
“You are taking them, Inspector,” said Kepner with the hint of a smile. He had sunk back comfortably into his chair. “What would I do with them, anyway? Just make sure you catch him before he comes too far west, that’s all.” Hoffner stopped in mid-shuffle. Kepner enjoyed Hoffner’s momentary surprise. “There’s no stricture about reading before sundown, Inspector.”
Kepner had known exactly what he was doing, all along. He had simply managed to feel safer not knowing the details.
“I’ll try, mein Herr.”
“Good,” said Kepner. “There is one favor I have to ask of you.”
Hoffner finished stacking. “Of course, mein Herr.”
“This aspect of your case. The lace. I’m hoping it can remain out of your reports. Lace, you see, is primarily . . .” Kepner hesitated. “That is to say, the quality of this particular lace—”
“Lace is a Jewish concern, Inspector,” Brenner cut in bluntly. “In Berlin, trade and production of this type are run primarily by Jews.”
“I see,” said Hoffner.
Kepner deferred to his son-in-law. Brenner continued: “If it should get out, if the newspapers should decide to print that we were in any way associated with this case—that this man was using our designs as some kind of inspiration for his madness—you understand our concern.”
Fichte piped in, “A loss of business, mein Herr?”
The room fell silent. Brenner had long ago learned to swallow his rage. When he answered, he spoke quietly, deliberately. “No, Herr Detective. Another excuse to blame the Jews. Not that the revolution hasn’t delivered on that front.”
Before Fichte could open his mouth again, Hoffner said, “Of course, mein Herr.” He stood, the pages in hand. “None of this needs to come out. The reading public never goes in much for the details, anyway. You have my word.”
Brenner remained silent. He glanced at Kepner. The older man nodded. Brenner then turned back to Hoffner. “I’ll show you out.”
Forty minutes later, Hoffner stood in his office, slowly penciling the last lines of the design onto the map. He made sure that the lengths of each of the segments conformed to the basic proportions of Kepner’s original, but it was clear even before he had made it halfway to the sixth knot where Wouters would be bringing his next victim. Hoffner stared at the spot. Somehow he had known all along.
The Ochsenhof.
What could be better, he thought. Two city blocks filled with the worst human refuse that Berlin had to offer. Murder was routine in the “cattle yard,” not that Wouters could have known that. The man was simply following his design. That it was now leading him to a place that, in essence, lay beyond the reach of the Kripo was simply his good fortune.
Hoffner stared a moment longer, then began to remove the pins.
Fichte said, “How did you know where to tell Kepner to start?”
Hoffner continued with the pins. “That’s an excellent question, Hans.” Hoffner went to work on the tacks that were holding the map to the wall. “Give me a hand here.” Fichte stepped over and the two brought the map to the desk. Very delicately, Hoffner began to fold it.
Fichte said, “We don’t need the map anymore?”
Hoffner concentrated on the folds. “We don’t need anyone else seeing what’s been written on it.”
Fichte understood. “So how did you know?” he said.
Hoffner made the final crease. “The cavern inside the Rosenthaler station,” he said. He felt strange placing the map inside the filing cabinet rather than in a folder for the archive clerk. Maps came down only when cases were complete. This case, however, was changing the rules as it went.
“What about it?” said Fichte.
Hoffner locked the drawer. “We’ll have plenty of time to discuss it. Right now, I need ten minutes. Then meet me downstairs, and bring whatever’s going to keep you the driest.”
A LAST STROKE OF THE KNIFE
Wouters was making them wait.
Three days camped outside the Ochsenhof had taken its toll. Fichte complained of everything—cramp, filth, exhaustion; Hoffner was feeling it in his lower back and legs. He said nothing. He knew that Mulackstrasse was never kind. At best, it only goaded the rain. Tonight the wind was whipping up. Even the most secure nooks and alleyways had fallen prey to the biting damp and chill.
Three a.m., and they were holed up in a recessed stairwell directly across from the tenement. Six or so of its entrances were in clear sight. Hoffner had found a bit of a muslin tarp that, along with a flask of brandy, was helping to keep them warm. It was a relative term. And, of course, there was the price to pay for the added heat: three minutes each morning at a nearby washbasin and toilet were doing little to dull the stink. Fichte was a large man. He was giving off as good as he got.
Stench and cold aside, Hoffner was grateful to be out on the streets: it meant that he was away from the Alex. The last few days had brought the “chisel murders” to a fever pitch. Any reason to avoid those unending requests for interviews and the like suited him just fine: Sunday, the Tiergarten body had graced the front pages, although Weigland’s pull had managed to keep any mention of Ganz-Neurath, or U-Bahn 2, from the public; Monday, Berlin had met the Rosenthaler Platz victim, though she remained unidentified, as Hoffner and Fichte were the only ones, thus far, to have given Mary Koop a name; and today, the list of the remaining victims—dating all the way back to the very first, in Mnz Strasse—had appeared in Kvatsch’s BZ afternoon article.<
br />
The Kripo leak had been working double time to make sure that any momentum lost to the revolution was now being paid back, and with interest. Anxiety over a pair of murders that had occurred in the last ten days was gaining a kind of retrospective boost of panic: the murders stretched back over months, and Berliners felt compelled to make up for lost time. The first accusations of Kripo incompetence were beginning to surface.
Hoffner stretched his neck. “I’m going to check on the boys.”
Hoffner had known from the start that the tenement was too large to manage from one lookout point, and so he had turned to little Franz. There was no one else at the Alex he could trust: word would get out, and Wouters would slip through their hands. Hoffner had told Präger that he was getting close; Präger might have been feeling the pressure himself, but he was smart enough to know that Hoffner worked best on his own terms.
Franz had recruited a group of teenaged Schlgers, street thugs who blended in perfectly with their surroundings: probably one full set of teeth among them. They needed the money; Hoffner needed the manpower. He had shown each of them the photograph of Wouters—the one he had pulled from van Acker’s file—although a description of Wouters’s diminutive size, and the fact that he would be dragging a trunk, had been far more helpful.
The nights had been easiest for Hoffner. Fichte preferred the days, what with the chance to stretch his legs, move through the crowds, get something hot to eat. All that changed after dark. In the silence, Fichte would drift off and leave Hoffner alone to piece together the strands that lay beyond Wouters: the second carver, the military connection to the Ascomycete 4, the “additions” to the Rosenthaler station, even the choice of the Tiergarten site as a threat to the city’s tenuous social order. They all led him back to one name: Luxemburg. Naturally, the why still eluded him. In a strange way, it was Wouters who now seemed more and more out of place. Rosa, however, remained suspended above it all, the world unwilling to “let her be,” even in death. Hoffner had kept the little book with him. He had read through it from time to time as Fichte slept. It held no answers, but there was something quieting in it.
Rosa Page 25