Rosa

there. No one to blame, Herr Oberkommissar. No reason to bring in the Korps.”

It was an odd choice-the word “blame”-thought Hoffner. He tried to see beyond it. If not Wouters, then who? Even Manstein had to admit that the Jews were too vague a target, lace designs notwithstanding. No. Manstein had made it clear that someone else was meant to take responsibility for her death. That was the key. That was why the bodies were piling up all over again. Someone who could. .

Hoffner stopped. Of course. He looked across at Pimm, and the words came back to him. This was a crime like any other, no matter how intricate its planning: and like all crimes, misdirection lay at its core.

Hoffner suddenly understood where he had gone wrong. He had been focusing on what these men had been trying to keep hidden, the layers to be peeled away: that was what made for conspiracy. But what if it was the other way round? What if the key was in what they wanted revealed?

Hoffner looked again at Manstein. “You wanted the Kripo to dig deep, didn’t you, Herr Doktor?”

Mantein’s expression seemed to soften. “Dig, Herr Oberkommissar?” He sounded almost encouraging. “And what was it that you were meant to find?”

Hoffner began to see it. “It’s really quite brilliant, isn’t it? Because it’s exactly what it appears to be. Wouters unleashed on the city. The murders as a ruse to create hysteria. All to cover up Luxemburg’s killing. You wanted it all to come out because it was all meant to lead back to one place. Nepp. Your man in the Defense Ministry.”

“Very good, Herr Oberkommissar.”

Hoffner plowed on. “Nepp was the one to give the orders to separate Luxemburg and Liebknecht that night.” Another flash of clarity. “And he was the one responsible for getting Wouters out of Belgium, wasn’t he?” When Manstein said nothing, Hoffner continued, “Oster’s orders. The ones to get him over the border. They were signed by General Nepp, weren’t they?”

Manstein was actually enjoying this. “Excellent.” Again Braun made a motion to speak, and again Manstein stopped him. “Go on, Herr Oberkommissar.”

“You created the conspiracy with the sole purpose of laying it all at Ebert’s feet. The tragedy of the last two months-it was all meant to be seen as little more than a highly elaborate scheme by the government to get rid of one of its more dangerous enemies. Rosa. Innocent women killed-”

“The city terrorized,” Manstein added with a strange satisfaction.

“Except it’s not you and your Thulian friends who get the blame. The conspiracy comes to light, and it’s Herr Nepp who makes certain to implicate the Social Democrats when he falls on his sword. The government is sent reeling and the Freikorps steps in to bring us all back from the brink.”

“No wonder you managed it so quickly with Wouters,” Manstein said.

Backhanded compliments aside, Hoffner needed to fill in the missing pieces. “So why hold on to her?” he said. “Why not have Rosa’s body discovered in late January? Everything else was in place.”

“Why not indeed?” said Manstein. “Perhaps Herr Braun would like to answer that one?” Braun had given up trying: he sat with a vacant stare. Manstein continued: “Braun underestimated you. He convinced us it would take you several months to find Wouters. By then the city would be in a panic, the murders would be front-page news every day. You had managed to keep the case hidden throughout the revolution. We needed time to build the hysteria, to let Frulein Luxemburg be our crowning jewel, the focus of the conspiracy to come. Unfortunately, you tracked down Wouters too quickly.”

“So why not stop Wouters from taking his victim to the Ochsenhof that night?” Hoffner pressed. “I don’t catch him and the killings go on.” Manstein waited for Hoffner to put it together himself. “You didn’t have Wouters by then, did you?”

“The Koop girl,” Manstein said. “Once you took her, there was nothing to bring him back to the site. The little engineer Sazonov was cleverer than we thought. And once Wouters was gone, he needed to be dead. Tossing Luxemburg out after that, without a captivated public-and with you a hero-would have meant nothing. She would have been the victim of a crime already solved, and without any link to Nepp.”

Something didn’t sit right. “But she was tossed out. The Kripo found her floating in the Landwehr Canal.”

Hoffner had hit a nerve. Again Manstein’s expression soured. “You can thank Rifleman Runge for that.” Manstein shook his head. “The boy got overexcited. Killed her too quickly. The knife work had to be done directly after death, otherwise the skin would have lost its elasticity. I managed to get to him in time, but then that mob you’ve been hearing so much about actually stumbled upon us. Down by the river. No choice but to find an embankment and hide her. Your comrades discovered her before we could get back. Braun was actually something of a help there.”

Hoffner’s mind was racing. Everything to set up Ebert’s government. Everything to place the blame where it least belonged.

“And Eisner?” said Hoffner. “The assassination? Berlin hysteria wasn’t enough? You had to bring it home to Munich, as well?”

“That,” said Manstein, “had nothing to do with us. We wouldn’t have sent a Jew to do our dirty work.”

No need for a coup, thought Hoffner. No need for an assassin’s bullet. With Nepp in place, it had all been much subtler than that. Hoffner said, “And then the digging went too far.”

“Yes,” said Manstein, lingering with the word. “Your trip to Munich was something of an eye-opener. Not that it was as much of a problem as you might think. It was time to start leaving bodies again, build up the hysteria.” Manstein peered directly into Hoffner’s eyes. “That was where we managed two birds with one stone, Herr Oberkommissar. Your wife seemed the perfect choice.”

There was something dead inside Hoffner, and no amount of goading could stir it to life. He said, “You’re taking this all very calmly, Herr Doktor.”

“As are you, Herr Oberkommissar.”

Hoffner said nothing.

“In fact,” Manstein added, “if you think about it, I’m handing it to you, Detective, not taking it.”

Again, Manstein was leading him. “And why is that?” said Hoffner.

“And here I thought you were so much cleverer than Herr Braun and his Polpo.” When Hoffner remained silent, Manstein spoke more deliberately: “As I said, you have her. And without Frau Luxemburg-”

“Yes. No conspiracy,” said Hoffner. “I understand that.”

“Yes, I think you do.” Manstein waited before adding, “But if you arrest us. .”

Hoffner listened to the tone in Manstein’s voice, and allowed himself to see beyond all of this: to the press meetings, the newspapers, Manstein paraded out in front of all of them. And it suddenly became clear. “Too many questions,” Hoffner said, almost to himself. “And ones you’d be only too happy to answer. Either way it would lead them back to Nepp.”

“Precisely,” said Manstein. “And from Nepp to Ebert. The larger picture, Herr Oberkommissar. Obviously, you’re going to dispose of Frulein Luxemburg, so you and I seem to be at an impasse. My friends and I have nothing to ignite our scheme, and you can’t take the risk that exposing us wouldn’t ultimately fall in Ebert’s lap. Your finding all this out-or, rather, your having it spoon-fed to you-stops you from doing anything. Too much to lose. A final safeguard, if you will, even if Herr Braun here didn’t quite understand that. Shame it had to come to this.”

Hoffner thought for a moment. “So why not kill you?”

Manstein was no less poised. “You’re not going to do that, Herr Oberkommissar. It’s not who you are.” Manstein waited. He then let out a long breath and, with surprising candor, said, “So I think we’re done here.” He turned to Zenlo. “You can remove the ropes now.” Manstein jiggled his wrists in Zenlo’s direction.

Hoffner said, “You’re forgetting we still have a murderer on the loose.”

“Oh, you’ll find someone to take the fall for that, Herr Oberkommissar. The Kripo always does. And it’s not as if it would be the first time, now would it?” Manstein turned again to Zenlo. “A knife, please. It’s becoming uncomfortable.”

Hoffner watched as Pimm and Zenlo shared a glance. They were no better prepared for this than Hoffner