Rosa (41 page)

With the names in hand, Hoffner now knew where to start digging: the Office of the General Staff.

Fichte, of course, had yet to appear this morning. These late arrivals were becoming irritatingly commonplace. Hoffner was about to write him a note when there was a knock at the door. He looked up to see Polpo
Direktor
Gerhard Weigland standing in the hall.

“Busy, Nikolai?” Hoffner’s mistrust must have registered on his face. “Just to talk,” said Weigland. “If you have a minute?”

Hoffner placed the pages in a drawer and motioned Weigland to take a seat. “Of course, Herr
Direktor.
”

Weigland glanced around the office and then sat. “As organized as ever.” Hoffner remained silent. “A chief inspector should have a bigger place, don’t you think?”

“This suits me fine, Herr
Direktor.
”

“Yes,” said Weigland. “I imagine it does.” He shifted tone. “Nice bit of press for you and young Fichte. Quite the heroes, these days.”

“The press believes what it wants to believe, Herr
Direktor.
”

“Does it?” Weigland nodded knowingly. “So, no heroes, then?”

“You’d do better to ask Fichte about that, Herr
Direktor.
I’m sure you see more of him than I do.”

Weigland ignored the jab. “The boy has ambition. Not such a bad thing.”

Hoffner cut to it. “What is it that I can do for you, Herr
Direktor
?”

Weigland nodded knowingly. “No time for chitchat. Of course. All those murders to get to.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver medallion that hung on a ribbon. He placed it on the desk. “I’ve had this for a good many years. It was your father’s.”

Hoffner barely moved as he glanced down at the small pendant. He looked across at Weigland and said coldly, “It’s very nice. Was there anything else, Herr
Direktor
?”

“It’s meant for you, Nikolai.”

Hoffner nodded to himself. “And is there a reason it’s coming to me now?”

Weigland reached for the pendant and flipped it over. “There’s an inscription.” He read: “‘Third Highest Marks, Political Police Entrance Examination, Martin Hoffner, 1877.’ Your father gave it to me.” Weigland stared a moment longer at the silver finish. “He didn’t want it after all that business.” Weigland set it down and looked across at Hoffner. “It was a long time ago. I thought you might want it.”

There was never any subtlety with Weigland: no doubt someone had been standing by the wire room, Weigland now aware that the lines between Berlin and Bruges were still very much open. It was a further reminder for Hoffner not to step where he wasn’t welcome. “You’ve been waiting for the right moment, is that it, Herr
Direktor
?”

Weigland looked as if he might reply with equal callousness; instead he said, “I just thought you might want it. A medal for a hero. Silly, I suppose. But then one can’t always be a hero. Best to make the most of it while you can.” Subtlety, thought Hoffner. Always subtlety. Weigland stood. “Well . . . please pass on my congratulations to
Kriminal-Bezirkssekretr
Fichte. When you see him.”

Hoffner stood. The two men exchanged a nod and Weigland moved to the corridor. He was at the door when he turned back and said, “I imagine it’s time for a new map, Nikolai. Keep to what you do best.” Weigland waited a moment and then headed out.

Hoffner listened for the footfalls to recede before he sat and reached across the desk for the medal. It was a cheap little thing, silver plate, something to be won at any school outing. Hoffner read the inscription: the lettering had blackened over the years.

He found himself staring at the date. His father had been a young man then, and ambitious. Hoffner could hardly imagine it. It was not the man he had ever known: Weigland had seen to that. For a moment Hoffner felt his father’s bitterness as his own. He tossed the thing onto the papers and slammed the drawer shut.

R
egimental Affairs was a relatively small office on the third floor of the General Staff building. None of its occupants looked up as Hoffner stepped inside: a distinguished-looking major sat at the far end—beyond a waist-high partition that ran the width of the room—his desk piled high with thick volumes; four lieutenants, also at desks and just this side of the partition, were leafing through mysterious reams of paper; and a young clerk—his coat off, his rank another mystery—sat closest to the door and was typing up the pages as they came down the line. The walls were nothing but floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, each filled with tall brown volumes with dates and regiment numbers etched across their spines. It might have been a university reading room—the air had that musty, academic smell to it—if not for the ramrod-straight backs of the men: these were soldiers, not scholars.

Hoffner pulled out his badge and said to the clerk, “I need a word with your Herr Major.”

The boy looked up. “May I ask what business the Herr Chief Inspector has with the Herr Major?”

“Personnel.”

The boy stood and moved briskly through the swinging half-door to the other side of the partition. Hoffner watched as the boy waited for the Herr Major to acknowledge him. The two exchanged a few words, and the clerk returned. “The Herr Major wishes to inform the Herr Chief Inspector that the Personnel Office is located—”

“On the third floor,” Hoffner cut in. “Yes. I’ve just had the pleasure of your Captain Strasser’s assistance. I’m not interested in the personnel of the General Staff. I’m looking for specific regimental members.”

Again the clerk made his way back. This time the Herr Major looked up and gazed out at Hoffner. Half a minute later, Hoffner was seated in front of his desk.

“This is a criminal investigation, yes, Herr Inspector?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say.”

The man showed no reaction. “All investigations of personnel, criminal or not, are handled internally, Herr Inspector. I don’t think we can be of any help to you.”

Hoffner wondered if men like this ever got tired of giving the same answer. “We’re interested in this man after his service, Herr Major. When he was a civilian. We’re simply trying to track him down. We don’t consider this a military affair.”

The Herr Major answered coolly. “Then I fail to see why you are troubling us with your investigation.”

“He’s not your responsibility, Herr Major. This happened after he was discharged.”

“So, again, I fail to see why you are troubling us.”

This, thought Hoffner, was why the war had been lost. “Our dossier is incomplete, Herr Major. Any information would be most helpful. However, I wouldn’t want to tax the General Staff beyond its limits. Perhaps the Polpo might be a better place for me to begin?” Hoffner began to get up. “Thank you for your time, Herr Major.”

This was not the first time the man had played at this game. He said calmly, “Have a seat, Herr Inspector.” He waited until he had Hoffner’s full attention. “The General Staff is, of course, eager to do what it can in the aid of a political case.”

It was remarkable to see the effects of one little word, thought Hoffner. Even the high walls of army insularity buckled at the prospect of the political police. “I didn’t say it was a political case, Herr Major.”

“No, of course not,” the man answered. “You have a regiment number, Herr Inspector?”

“No.” Somewhere behind the eyes, Hoffner saw a look of mild surprise.

“Of course you know a name will be of no help,” said the Herr Major. “We file everything according to regiment number. It would be impossible to wade through over a thousand volumes in search of a particular name.”

Hoffner—of course—did not know this. He nodded anyway and, thinking as he spoke, opted for the only other detail he had. “But you do list discharges by date, isn’t that right, Herr Major?”

“Those volumes are kept in a separate office, yes.”

Again Hoffner nodded, so as to give himself time to calculate. Van Acker had placed Urlicher’s arrival at the Bonn clinic in the third week of March 1918. Figuring on time for dismissal, transportation . . . “March seventh, 1918.” Hoffner spoke as if he were reading the date from a file. “The name is Urlicher. Konrad Urlicher.”

The information was written down and the clerk called over. The Herr Major then went back to his books, and fifteen minutes later the clerk returned with two large volumes. Hoffner had been spending his time alternating between counting the number of books on various shelves and the number of times the Herr Major blinked in any given minute. The books had won out eight to one.

The clerk handed the first of the volumes to the Herr Major and said, “It was the fifth of March, Herr Major. I checked four days in either direction.”

The boy had marked a page two-thirds of the way through. The Herr Major scanned it as he answered indifferently, “Well done, Corporal.” He found the name, flipped the book around to Hoffner, and pointed to a line on the page. It read:

Urlicher, Konrad. First Lieutenant. Anemia and Osteitis Deformans. Unsuitable for service.

Hoffner, however, was more interested in the further annotation:

14th Bavarian, Liebregiment.

Keeping his eye on the page, Hoffner said, “The Fourteenth Bavarian is recruited out of Munich, yes, Herr Major?” It was a reasonable-enough guess. Hoffner was still recovering from the gambit with the discharge date.

The Herr Major turned to the clerk, but the boy was one step ahead of him. The boy produced the second volume, his finger wedged between two pages. He opened it and handed the book to the Herr Major.

Once again the Herr Major glanced down the page. “Yes, Herr Inspector,” he said without so much as a nod for his clerk. “Munich recruits.” With a twitch of his fingers, he dismissed the boy.

Hoffner said, “May I, Herr Major?”

It was the Division Lists, broken down into regiments, battalions, and units, the last of which were alphabetized. Urlicher had been a member of the
Liebregiment,
Second Battalion, First Unit. Several lines above his name was an entry for a Second Lieutenant Erich Oster. Joachim Manstein, however, was not to be found. Hoffner casually flipped through to see if Manstein might appear in another unit or even battalion, but a quick scan turned up nothing. He knew anything more than a perfunctory glance would have caught the Herr Major’s attention. Hoffner brought out his pen and wrote down the names in Urlicher’s unit. He then closed the book and handed it back.

“The names you’ve written,” said the Herr Major. “Some of these men remain active members of the regiment, Herr Inspector. I’m correct in thinking that they will not be a part of your investigation?”

Hoffner pocketed his pen. “Of course, Herr Major.”

With a nod, the two men stood. The Herr Major said, “The man is dead by now, Herr Inspector. The disease is crippling and ultimately fatal. The bones become as brittle as paper. As you said, he is no longer our responsibility.”

Hoffner understood. The work of Regimental Affairs was now devoted to toting up the dead like so much excess inventory. Urlicher’s discharge had saved them valuable space; they were not intent on finding a spot for him now. “Then we won’t need to see each other again, will we, Herr Major?”

At the door, Hoffner tipped his hat to the clerk. The boy almost forgot himself with a smile.

B
ack at his office, Hoffner wrote out a short list of names: Urlicher, Oster, and Manstein, Trger, Schumpert, and Biberkopf—Jogiches had mentioned “Prussian business concerns,” so why not include them?—and for good measure, Braun, Tamshik, and Hermannsohn; Weigland, he knew, was not clever enough to merit inclusion. At the bottom of the page, he wrote the words “Rosa” and “Wouters.” He also jotted down dates next to each of the men’s names, indicating when they might have become involved, or at least when they had shown some connection to Rosa and Wouters. How far back that went was impossible to say.

The first three had conspired to set Wouters loose on Berlin starting in June of last year, but to what end? To get rid of Rosa without a trace of political involvement, by having it appear that she was just one more victim of Wouters’s madness? Why not simply do the killings themselves, if it was all a ploy? Why dredge up Wouters? If Urlicher, Oster, and Manstein had in fact been working in conjunction with any of the last three on the list, why was the Polpo holding on to her body? Why set up Wouters, unleash him, and then keep Rosa hidden? Jogiches’s “obvious” answer made sense only in hindsight. Worse, Hoffner had nothing to say about the three names in the middle. The design of the Rosenthaler station and the missing engineer—Herr Tben/Sazonov—pointed to the construction company of Ganz-Neurath, but Berlin money linked to a Munich regiment not only seemed a stretch, it was completely out of character: there were no heights steep enough from which a Prussian could look down his nose at a Bavarian. The timing there was also troubling: when had Herr Tben/Sazonov made his alterations so as to give Wouters his ideal surroundings?

The only recourse Hoffner had was to track down Oster and Manstein, which only confirmed everything Jogiches had been saying: Munich.

Hoffner reached over to telephone the duty desk for a train schedule and saw little Franz standing in the doorway. It was unclear how long the boy had been there. “Something I can do for you, Franz?”

The boy was oddly hesitant. “A note’s come in for you, Herr
Oberkommissar.
To the duty desk.”

“Well, give it here.” Franz produced the small, familiar-looking envelope. “Same man with the beard?” Hoffner sliced open the top as Franz nodded.

Odd, thought Hoffner. Jogiches was hardly a man to repeat himself. “Anything on Herr Kvatsch?” He pulled out the card. He had given up hope at this point: Kvatsch was playing it far better than he had anticipated. Still, it was good to ask; keep the boy on his toes.

“A few more times with Herr
Kriminal-Bezirkssekretr
Groener,” said Franz, “but nothing more, Herr
Oberkommissar.
”