Herthge gave a mirthless laugh. His breath was failing. By now the blood had formed a large pool all around his body and was still oozing from between his fingers.
‘I wasn’t sure,’ he wheezed. ‘Only guessed you had me in your sights. I thought the only one who posed a threat to me was the other witness, that woman who caught a glimpse of me in Lappenbergs Allee.’
‘Anna von Veckinhausen.’
‘It wasn’t exactly hard to find out that it was her who had given you that bit of information. It was in the files. Wasn’t hard either to find out where she lived. I thought that if I got her out of the way, then there would be no more witnesses. I was lying in wait for her.’
‘Today?’
‘Yes. But she was never alone. As you know only too well.’
Stave imagined Herthge following them, to the Kunsthalle, along the Alster, to the flophouse where he had made love to Anna. Imagined him sneaking after them through the rubble. It made him feel sick. He had to make an effort not to kick the dying man.
‘And because you couldn’t get your hands on your real target, you went for me instead.’
‘I was angry that you’d got in the way. I wasn’t thinking straight. Everybody makes a mistake.’
Herthge’s breathing was fading fast. His legs no longer trembled. He was lying in a pool of blood.
‘I’m cold,’ he whispered.
‘Hell’s a cold place,’ Stave said, then got to his feet, turned around and left.
A few hundred metres away, in an almost undamaged apartment block, lights glimmered behind boarded-up windows – candles, low-wattage light bulbs. Some of the windows were open. There was the sound of voices and gramophone music. Chief Inspector Frank Stave took one last look at the cellar where Herthge lay dying. He stood there for a long time, looking at the ruins, which in the merciful moonlight looked almost majestic. Then, in the shadow of a scarred and fractured wall, he limped away.