Dead Woods (30 page)

“I’d assume he hoped it would become known through you that the Ansmann Bank is facing difficulties,” Katja said. Lina gave her a surprised look.

Max had voiced the same suspicion, but Lina remained skeptical. “Doesn’t he have his contacts in the press to do that? I mean, a man in his position . . .”

Katja Ansmann nodded. “Of course he knows the right people in the right places. But he can’t use them in this case since it would be immediately obvious that he leaked the information. As I told you, only a very small circle knows about it.”

Lina mulled it over. “However, if I had included the information in my official reports for this case and it had been published by our public relations office . . . then nobody would have known that the information came from him.”

Katja Ansmann nodded. “The bank’s precarious situation would have become public knowledge, investors and clients would have become nervous, and they’d have withdrawn their money.” She closed her eyes as if she were trying to imagine such horror. “The work of five generations . . . gone.”

“But he didn’t count on my not saying anything, or at least not officially mentioning it.” She had to laugh again. “Me, of all people, helping to save a bank.”

Katja Ansmann was smiling. The corners of her mouth began to tremble and then she laughed, as well.

Max had called Frau Meyer in the morning and asked her to keep Niels Hinrichsen in her apartment until he got there. She had prepared a substantial breakfast for her neighbor, but by the time Max finally arrived, shortly before ten, the poor woman was desperate, as was Niels, who couldn’t understand why he couldn’t be on his way to the forest yet.

Now, the two men were walking from the apartment to the Niendorfer Gehege, since Niels couldn’t be persuaded to get into Max’s car. He was almost running, so strong was the pull of his beloved forest, and Max always stayed a step behind him. He looked at the patch of fallow land on one side and the development of single-family houses on the other side of the road, which didn’t even have a proper sidewalk.
Just as if it were out in the countryside
, Max thought,
and not in the middle of Hamburg.
He heard the unmelodic screeching of a pheasant. Then some chickens were clucking. But then a jet thundered very low above their heads, destroying the image of a bucolic idyll.

They came to a railroad underpass. The Kollau flowed right next to it. Niels was laughing like a child as he ran across the bridge toward a community garden. He pointed out a lot abutting the woods. The lawn was cropped, the hedge met the height requirement of less than four feet, and the flower beds were neatly bordered with stones. “That’s where my gramps used to live,” he explained. “He was tall and strong and he took care of the forest.” Hinrichsen had forgotten his impatience and stopped to look at the lot with yearning. “But the house didn’t belong to Gramps. Other people built that.”

And the building on the lot actually bore no resemblance to a modest garden hut, but looked like a weekend cottage, or a diminutive house. It even came with a nameplate at the gate and a mailbox.

They left the area of the community garden soon afterward, turned left, then left again, and a little later stood at the spot where Philip Birkner’s body had been found. A remnant of the red-and-white crime-scene tape was still hanging from a branch, but nothing else indicated that eleven days ago this had been the site of a murder.

Niels Hinrichsen didn’t seem to care that a human being had died here not long ago. He ran around like a child, stopping at a tree or bending over a little plant, without paying attention to the many walkers who crowded the little forest on this sunny Sunday morning. Once he touched the tiny white blossoms of a plant very tenderly and lovingly, as if the flower were a dear friend. Max watched him stop at the crime scene, shaking his head disapprovingly. The place didn’t give Niels an eerie feeling but made him indignant.

“Everything’s ruined,” he said. “They trampled down everything.”

“I think the plants will recover,” Max said. “They’ll grow again and become tall and strong.”
Unlike Philip Birkner
, he thought.

Niels lifted his head and looked at him. “You really think so?” he asked, with wide-open eyes, like a child.

Max nodded. “I’m sure. Plants can do that.”

While Max pondered a good way to talk about the night of the crime, Niels said, “But people can’t, can they? The man’s dead, huh?”

Max didn’t let him see his surprise and just nodded again. “Yes, Niels, the man is dead.” He paused. “You were watching it, weren’t you—after you had washed the plant in the Kollau?”

Niels looked to the ground and stepped from one foot to the other. Max feared he would again escape to his “Don’t know anything.” But he said in a low voice, “Was afraid.”

Max held his breath. “You saw who beat the evil man to death, didn’t you?” he finally said gently.

Niels nodded. “He had a sword, like the knights. And he beat the other man, real hard—on his head.”

A sword? What had Niels seen? Based on the autopsy report, Philip Birkner was killed with a hard object, a steel pipe maybe. “What did the sword look like, Niels. Do you still remember?”

Niels nodded again. “It was shiny,” he said. “Like a knight’s sword.”

“And how large was the sword?”

Niels frowned. The question seemed too much for him. Max looked around and pointed to a stick next to the path. It was covered with bite marks and had probably been carried around by countless dogs, triumphantly and with wagging tails. “Was the sword about as large as the stick over there?” Max asked.

Niels picked it up and studied it carefully. “That’s chestnut,” he explained. “It smells good.” He looked at Max. “That hurts if you hit someone with it.”

Max didn’t dare ask him again about the mysterious sword since he feared that Niels would clam up again.

“Niels, did you see the man who had the sword?” he asked instead.

Niels held on fast to the stick. “There was blood,” he said. “Lots of blood.” He stared at the stick and his mouth was twitching.

“And the man who was beating him, the one with the sword, was he also bleeding?” Max asked even though he knew it was probably not the case.

Niels looked at him and shook his head. “Nope. But he was nasty, he was.” He looked around as if he were afraid the man could come out from behind one of the trees. “Evil. Nastier than the other guy.”

“Do you know how tall the evil man was?” Max asked. “Was he as tall as I am? Taller? Shorter?”

Puzzled, Niels looked at him and then lowered his gaze. “Dunno,” he said quietly.

“Don’t worry, Niels,” Max said immediately. “You’ve helped me a lot already. You’ve done an excellent job.”

Niels lifted his head shyly and Max smiled at him. “The nasty man was fat,” Niels finally said, in a low voice, as if he weren’t sure it was the answer Max wanted to hear.

Max frowned. A fat man as the killer? Daniel Vogler was the very opposite of fat. “The man with the sword was fat? How fat?”

Niels had seen his frown and was looking down at the ground again. “Dunno. Don’t know anything.”

After the two women had calmed down, they sat there in a slightly embarrassed silence. Lina wiped away tears of laughter and Katja Ansmann blew her nose. When their eyes met, they smiled and quickly looked away. Lina felt strangely relieved, as if a huge burden had been taken off her shoulders, a burden she hadn’t realized was there. Yet now she was carrying a completely new weight: she was partly responsible for the continued prosperity of the Ansmann & Son Bank. Contemplating her role as savior of a bank—she, of all people—she had to grin. But then she looked at Katja Ansmann, who was again her usual perfect self. Her makeup was as precise as ever, her white blouse shimmered in the dim light, and the usual mocking expression played around her mouth. That brought Lina back to reality fast. Katja Ansmann was a suspect in a murder case, or at least a witness—a witness who might have valuable information.

“Frau Ansmann, now that we’re here . . . I really would like to know in more detail what kind of relationship you had with Herr Birkner,” Lina asked.

If Katja Ansmann was surprised by the change in topic, she didn’t show it. “We had an open relationship,” she said, but this time it sounded less like permissiveness than an empty phrase.

“How open?” she asked, digging deeper. When Katja Ansmann didn’t answer, she sighed. “Frau Ansmann, this isn’t about you or your relationship with Frau Riemann. I’m trying to solve a murder, believe it or not.”

Katja Ansmann let herself fall back into her chair and looked at Lina. “Philip and I had no relationship at all.”

This, somehow, did not surprise Lina. She tilted her head, the same way Max did when he wanted to get people to talk.

“When I met him just three years ago, I had already been in a relationship with Evelyn Riemann for a year. We love each other. We are a couple, but we can’t afford to make our relationship public.” With a bitter laugh, she continued, “I know what you think. I’ve already seen it last Sunday when you found out about Evelyn. Nowadays, when nobody cares if a mayor or secretary of state is gay, nobody should give a hoot if two women declare that they are together. But I can assure you, this can be a serious career impediment in business. It’s hard enough for women to reach leading positions, but can you imagine a lesbian chief executive with Siemens, for example, or BMW, or the Deutsche Bank?”

Lina shook her head.

“We both have aspirations for a business career. Therefore it’s absolutely impossible for us to ever live together, much less marry.” She sighed and touched the empty glass on the table in front of her. “But it’s almost equally difficult to advance as an unmarried woman. You have no idea how many women, but also men, in similar positions enter fake relationships—a good boyfriend, a good girlfriend, who function as fiancé or fiancée if the occasion demands it. When I met Philip Birkner, I fell for his charm, as many did. You never met him, but you have to believe me: he had something, something that melted your heart.” She added with a tiny smile, “I’m a lesbian, but that doesn’t mean that manly charms leave me absolutely cold. I was interested in him and he made it clear that he liked me, too.” She laughed briefly. “I assume that he probably liked my name and my money more than my personality. I discussed it with Evelyn. I checked his background. I knew his company since he had hired me as a management consultant when he was planning an expansion. He looked good, had perfect manners, was intelligent—and he dreamed of making it big. I was looking for a man whom I could present to my business partners and to my family as the man by my side.” She paused. “Besides, I wanted a child and had often talked about it with Evelyn. But there simply were no men fitting my requirements in our social circle. So I entered a relationship with Philip, with her knowledge and approval.” After another pause, she continued, “It was . . . an interesting experience, but I was glad that I became pregnant very fast and could, therefore, keep him at a distance. He was very understanding and treated me extremely tenderly. To my surprise, he was overjoyed about the prospect of becoming a father. I hadn’t taken that into account, but it solidified our plan, Evelyn’s and mine, to make him my official partner. We started to look for an apartment even before Leon was born.”

With an amused laugh, she went on, “In the beginning, he was still insecure when the realtor showed us properties—he wasn’t used to such scale. But Philip was a chameleon and adapted quickly.” Katja Ansmann shook her head. “It was truly amazing. After a very short time nobody would have guessed his lower middle-class background.” She looked beyond Lina and waved for the waiter. Both women ordered latte macchiatos and then Katja Ansmann continued her story. “He also managed to easily suppress the fact that he more or less was only a renter in our apartment. I’m the sole owner, of course.” She hesitated for a moment. “Nobody but Evelyn knows that, and now you.”

Lina nodded, but didn’t say anything. In her profession she was often told secrets. You better not be a gossip if you work for the police.

“Philip didn’t mind. He nevertheless spoke of ‘his’ apartment and I noticed how he loved to boast about it—in front of his parents, his brother, his brother’s wife, his employees, and his friends.” Katja Ansmann stopped talking when the coffee was served. “You’ve seen our apartment. I’m sure you remember Philip’s study,” she asked Lina, while mixing the foamed milk and the espresso, without sugar. Lina nodded again without saying anything. “That’s where he also slept. Always. I told him the truth shortly before we moved in together: we would live together, go out together, raise our son together, but nothing else was going to go on. That meant that we both were absolutely free to enter other relationships. Of course he agreed. This arrangement brought him nothing but advantages. He got an apartment and a girlfriend with a desirable pedigree, whom he could show off and who could smooth his upward climb. And he could have his fill of other women, as long as he was discreet—which he was.”

“Weren’t you ever afraid he could use this situation against you; for example, that he could blackmail you? I mean, he probably knew that you were a lesbian, didn’t he?” Lina asked.

Katja Ansmann shook her head. “He couldn’t be sure. I assume he had his suspicions; he wasn’t stupid. But he had no proof. What could he have done? After all, there was Leon, testimony of our intimate relationship—once, at least. The finances were in order. He contributed to the costs of running the household, but otherwise we used separate accounts. He didn’t have to tell me what he did with his money, and my money always remained mine.”
Or your father’s
, Lina thought.

“How long were you going to keep up this facade?”

“Until it would no longer work, for some reason or other. Until Leon was old enough to ask questions about separate bedrooms, for example.”

Or until Philip had come to rely on her for money, Lina thought. “What do you know about Inoware’s bankruptcy?” she asked.

Katja looked indignant. “Not much. Philip told me almost nothing, except that Frank Jensen had made a fatal mistake and might even have engaged in industrial espionage.”