Welker smiled. “That would be quite ironic, wouldn’t it, if the silent partnership, which was my pretext for bringing you into this affair, now posed a threat to me?”
“I don’t think that’s funny. I don’t think your murder of Samarin is funny, either, a murder you committed with cold premeditation and which you presented to us as the act of a desperate man. I don’t think it’s funny that you’re continuing Samarin’s practices. No, I don’t see anything comic in any of this.”
“I said ‘ironic’, I didn’t say ‘comic.’”
“Ironic, comic-either way, I don’t see anything I could laugh about. And when I weigh the fact that Samarin, who didn’t murder Schuler, probably also didn’t murder your wife-about which you always spoke with such emotion-then I stop laughing entirely. What happened to your wife? Did you find that she, having had a fatal accident, could be of some use as a murder victim? Or wasn’t it an accident at all? Did you kill your wife?” I was furious.
I thought he would jump to his own defense. He had to. He couldn’t allow me to get away with what I’d just said. But he uncrossed his legs, leaned his elbows on his knees, pursed his lips, sullen and sulking, and slowly shook his head. “Herr Self, Herr Self…”
I waited.
After a while he sat up in his chair and looked me straight in the eye. “It is a fact that Gregor, wearing a straitjacket, was shot in the Luisenpark. If you have something to say about how he came to be there, why he was in a straitjacket, and why he was killed, I suggest you go to the police. It is also a fact that Schuler had high blood pressure and that he drove into a tree in front of your office and died. If he came by to bring you something, if you were with him before the incident and saw that he was in a bad way, then why did you let him get into his car? From what I can see, there are one or two inconsistencies, if not more. Perhaps there are also one or two inconsistencies in the matter of my wife’s death, where naturally the police suspected me first but ended up counting me out. We all have to learn to live with inconsistencies. We can’t just start leveling unsubstantiated accusations…” He shook his head again.
I wanted to intervene, but he wouldn’t let me.
“This is one of the things I wanted to tell you. The other is-how shall I put it?-I’m not interested in history: the Third Reich, the war, the Jews, silent partners, dead heirs, old claims! All that is water under the bridge. It has nothing to do with me, and I won’t be drawn into it. It bores me. I also have no interest in East Germany. I’d be happiest if everyone in the East would just stay where they are. But when the East comes over here, strikes root, starts meddling and trying to take over my business, then I have to show them that that’s not the name of the game. Samarin and his Russians came here to usurp me-don’t forget that. The past, the past! I’ve had enough of it. Our parents bored us with all those tales of their suffering during the war, their deeds in rebuilding Germany, and their part in the economic miracle, the young teachers with their myths of 1968. Do you, too, have a tale to offer? Enough! My job is to keep Weller and Welker above water. We’re an anachronism. On the great ocean of the world economy we’re just a little barge among the oil tankers, container ships, destroyers, and aircraft carriers-a barge that gets tossed about in the rough seas through which all those other ships can sail smoothly. I don’t know how long we can hold out. Perhaps my children won’t be interested in continuing. Perhaps I myself will lose interest one day. As it is, I don’t belong here. I’d have done better to become a doctor and collect art on the side or even to have picked up a brush myself. I’m old-fashioned, you know. Not in the sense that I’m in any way interested in the past. But I would have liked a quiet, old-fashioned kind of life. Old-fashioned-it’s old-fashioned, too, that I followed family tradition and am now running the family bank. But the only way of doing this is all or nothing, and as long as I’m running this bank, as long as we Welkers still exist, nobody will take us for a sleigh ride.” He repeated emphatically: “Nobody!” Then he smiled again. “I’m surprised you let me get away with that mixed metaphor. A barge can hardly be used for a sleigh ride.”
He got up, and so did I. I’d had enough of his words-his well-considered, well-crafted lies, truths, and half-truths.
On the stairs he said: “It’s amazing how old habits can come back to haunt one.”
“What do you mean?”
“If Schuler hadn’t made a habit of storing his Catapresan pills in those bottles, nobody could have replaced them.”
“He didn’t do it out of habit. His niece did it because with his arthritic fingers he couldn’t get the pills out of the foil.”
Then I remembered that though I had told him about a blood-pressure medication, I hadn’t mentioned Catapresan. Had he just betrayed himself? I stopped.
He also stopped, turned to me, and looked at me pleasantly. “The medication was Catapresan, wasn’t it?”
“I never…” But there was no point of capturing on tape: “I never mentioned the name of the medication.” It wouldn’t prove a thing. There was no point, either, in saying that to Welker. He knew it well enough. He had permitted himself a little joke.
17 Presumption of innocence
I went home and sat outside on the balcony. I smoked a cigarette, then another. The third tasted once again the way cigarettes used to when I smoked as many as I wanted.
I was furious. Furious at Welker, at his sense of superiority, his composure, his impudence. At how he’d gotten away with two murders, with the theft of the silent partnership, with money laundering. At how he’d let me know that he had done these things, all the while making it clear that I shouldn’t presume to match myself against him. I shouldn’t presume to match myself against him? He shouldn’t presume he’d get away with this!
I called my friends and insisted they come over that evening. The Nägelsbachs, Philipp, and Füruzan promised to be over by eight. “What are we celebrating?” “What’s for dinner?” “Spaghetti carbonara, if you’re hungry.” Brigitte said she couldn’t come till later.
They weren’t hungry. They didn’t know what to make of the sudden invitation and sat around expectantly, nursing their wine. All I told them was that I had spoken with Welker and had recorded the conversation. I played them the tape. When it ended, they looked at me questioningly.
“If you remember, Welker hired me to find the silent partner, just to bring me into the game without Samarin suspecting anything. Banks and family stories, stories of yesterday and the distant past-it all sounded innocent enough. Welker wanted me in the game so I’d be there when he got the opportunity to move against Samarin. The matter of the silent partner didn’t interest him at all. But then the silent partner did become interesting. He took on a face-and not in a figurative sense, but a literal one. A face with a receding hairline, large ears, and protruding eyes. You’ll recognize this face.” I handed them Laban’s picture.
“Well I’ll be damned!” Philipp said.
“Old Herr Weller and Herr Welker had acted correctly enough: they helped the silent partner’s great-nephew establish himself financially in London and saw to it that the great-niece, who hadn’t managed to leave Germany in time, got new papers under the name Samarin. When she died, they looked after her child. Though as the boy was born with the name Gregor Samarin, they also raised him as such. The great-nephew died in London, and the great-niece had disappeared as ‘Ursula Brock.’ The silent partner’s share was to go unclaimed for good.”