Trger answered abruptly. “With a few modifications, yes. The same construction. Kommissar, what has this to do with your case?”
Images were flying through Hoffner’s head. He saw the frustration in Trger’s eyes. “Thank you, Herr Direktor.” And without another word, Hoffner took hold of the ladder and headed up.
Out on the plaza, Sascha was holding court among a group of Schutzi patrolmen. Hoffner caught his breath as he made his way across.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, still winded. The men moved off. “I need a favor, Sascha.”
The boy’s eyes widened, and not for the misuse of his name. This was the first time he had ever heard his father ask for help. “A favor?” Sascha said uncertainly.
“I need you to go back to the Alex. To my office.”
“Now?” he said more eagerly.
“Yes, now. There might be a telephone call. If Herr Fichte shows up, you tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Sascha nodded through the instructions. “And if the telephone call does come in?”
Hoffner had not thought that far ahead. “Good point. You tell the gentleman that I’ll call him back. A Herr Kepner. Take his number. He’s to say nothing else on the line. You’re to make sure of that. Nothing else. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Excellent.” Hoffner reached into his pocket and pulled out some coins. “You’re doing me a tremendous good turn, Sascha.” He handed the coins to the boy. “Whatever you don’t use on the trams, you keep for yourself, all right?” He squeezed a hand on the boy’s arm. “Thank you.” He then headed off.
“You’re welcome, Father.” But Hoffner was already out of earshot.
Five and a half kilometers across town, a sign had replaced the Schutzi patrolman: ENTRY STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. Evidently it had worked just as well. The Rosenthaler site was completely deserted. Hoffner took hold of the ladder and headed down.
Fifteen rungs in, the cavern became pitch black. He reached the bottom, struck a match, and gently wedged it between two wooden slats.
From the little he could see, Hoffner managed to locate a stray pick lying on the ground. He took it and began to wrap his handkerchief around its wooden end. He then pulled out his flask and doused the cloth in liquor. Holding the pick by its chisel edge, he struck a second match and lit the improvised torch. At once the underbelly of the station opened up in wild shadows in front of him. The odor of feces was long gone, as was any indication that a family had been living down here until ten days ago. Even the boards for the feather beds had been restored to their rightful places.
Trger had been right: the space was virtually identical to the other designs Hoffner had seen in the past three days. The spokes that led out into the arcade were simply other single-line tunnels, those “modifications” Trger had mentioned. They, however, were not the reason Hoffner had come.
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?”