I’d never seen my old friend like this. I must have stared at him in surprise.
“What you want to know is whether I think he murdered her. The fact that he had her note means nothing. There was no date on it, so it could be old. That he was at his wit’s end when he turned up at the chalet doesn’t mean anything, either. One would have to be quite a monster not to be a nervous wreck after killing one’s own wife. What’s in his favor is that one can’t be sure a glacier near Saint Moritz would be free of hikers, even early in the morning. Pushing one’s wife into a crevasse in the glacier is about as discreet as pushing her off a bridge onto an autobahn.”
“If there’s enough money at stake-”
“One takes bigger risks, I know. But then both had made more than enough money since their takeover of the Sorbian Cooperative Bank.”
“Since what?”
“After the Berlin Wall fell, the Weller and Welker bank took over the Sorbian Cooperative Bank, a former East German institution based in Cottbus, with local branches nearby. The takeover was a success, not to mention that every investment people make now is supported by more grants than you can mention, all the way from Berlin to Brussels.”
“But a man might also be ready to take a bigger risk when love or hatred-”
“No, there was no sign at all that he might have had a mistress, or she a lover. The two of them had been in love since they were children, and they were happily married. Have you seen pictures of her? A dark beauty, with eyes full of fire and spirit. It’s true that beautiful women-and especially beautiful women-get murdered. But not by happy, loving husbands.”
“Brigitte thinks she might have run away.”
“My wife suggested that, too.” He laughed. “What we have here is a touch of feminine instinct. Yes, she could have run away.”
I waited to hear how the police followed up that lead and what they’d found, what his view of the likelihood of such a possibility was. When he said nothing, I asked him outright.
“She could be God knows where. It might not be the most charming way to leave a man, but then, no way of leaving someone is charming.”
I’d known Nägelsbach since he had started working as a bailiff at the Heidelberg public prosecutor’s office. He is a quiet, serious, thoughtful police officer. His hobby is building matchstick sculptures, models ranging from the Cologne Cathedral and Neuschwanstein Castle to the Bruchsal prison. He is often in a good mood and likes a good joke. Dark humor, satire, and sarcasm are foreign to him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He avoided my eyes and looked out the window. The trees were still bare, but their buds were on the verge of bursting open. He raised his hands and let them fall again. “I’m up for the Federal Cross of Merit.”
“Well, congratulations!”
“Congratulations? It’s true I was delighted at first. But…” He took a deep breath. “We’ve got this new chief. One of those energetic, efficient young men. Needless to say, he doesn’t know us like the old chief did. But he’s not particularly interested in us, either. So he walks up to me and says: ‘Herr Nägelsbach, you’ll be getting a Federal Cross of Merit when you leave. I’ll be needing a few pages on you.’ ‘What for?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know anything about you, but I’m sure you know all there is to know. I want you to write down for me why you deserve the ribbon in your buttonhole.’ Can you imagine?”
“That’s what new young bosses are like nowadays.”
“I told him there was no way I’d do that, to which he replied that it was an official order.”
“And?”
“He just laughed and went on his way.”
“The ‘official order’ bit is just a silly joke.”
“The whole thing’s a silly joke. Federal Crosses of Merit, official orders, the years I sat here, the cases I worked on: so funny, you could split your sides. I realized that much too late. If I had realized it earlier I could have had a lot more fun.”
“Haven’t we always known that?”
“Known what?” He was hurt and defensive.
“That we could have had more fun in life.”
“But…” He didn’t go on. He looked out at the trees again, then at his desk, then at me. The hint of a smile flitted over his mouth. “Yes, perhaps I have always known it.” He pushed his chair back and got up. “I’ve got to head out. Did you jot down old Herr Weller’s address? The Augustinum retirement home in Emmertsgrund. The other parents are dead. By the way, he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. He just some times acts like he does when you ask him a question he doesn’t like.”
11 Quick cash
Emmertsgrund, Heidelberg ’s newest residential development, lies on a slope above Leimen. The attractive apartments of the Augustinum retirement home face westward and have a view of the Rhine plain, just as the beautiful hospital rooms of the Speyerer Hof Clinic do. A cement factory lies at the foot of the hill, emitting pale, fine dust.
Old Herr Weller and I sat by the window. The two rooms of his apartment were filled with his own furniture, and before we sat down he told me the story of every piece. He also told me about his neighbors, with whom he didn’t get along; the food there, which he didn’t like; and the roster of social activities from folk dancing to silk painting, in which he wasn’t interested. His failing eyesight prevented him from driving, so he was stuck in the Augustinum and felt lonely. I don’t think he really believed that I was collecting donations for the German War Graves Commission, but he was lonely enough not to care who I was. What’s more, we’d been both wounded in action in the Poland Campaign back in the war.
I invented a son, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson, and he told me about his family, and about the death of his daughter.
“Don’t your son-in-law and grandchildren come to see you?” I asked him.
“He hasn’t come since Stephanie died. I don’t hold it against him, but he does have a bad conscience. As for my grandkids, they’re off at school in Switzerland.”
“Why should he have a bad conscience?”
“He should have looked after her. And he shouldn’t have gone in for all that nonsense with that former East German bank.”
While old Herr Weller had been complaining about his living conditions, there was a hint of whining in his voice. Now he spoke resolutely, and I felt the authority he must have once commanded.
“I thought it was all milk and honey with those banks in our new eastern states,” I said.
“Let me tell you something, young man”-he was my age, but to my amazement actually addressed me as “young man”-“you don’t have a background in banking, so I don’t expect you to know any of this. The reason our bank survived was because it downsized, not because it expanded. We man age fortunes, advise investors, supervise funds, and do all that on a high international level. The few local people in Schwetzingen who still have accounts with us don’t really fit the profile anymore. We serve them for old times’ sake. And the clients of the Sorbian Cooperative Bank don’t fit the profile, either, even if there are a lot of them; even if little and often fills the purse.”
“Your son-in-law doesn’t see eye-to-eye with you on this?”
“Him?” he bleated, laughing abruptly and contemptuously. “I’ve no idea what he can see, or if he can see at all, for that matter. He’s a talented boy, but the bank’s not his thing and never has been. He studied medicine, and old Welker ought to have let him become a doctor instead of forcing him into banking because of family tradition-as if things as they now stand still have anything to do with family tradition! It’s all about fast money, new friends, new employees-I’ve no idea if the investment and funds business still exists the way Welker and I set it up. That’s how far things have come: I have no idea what’s going on.”