‘Hans, this isn’t the serial-killer case I’m investigating. I’m investigating the Geismeier escape from Dachau. Think of it that way.’
The Bavarian Forest
Bergemann and Willi rarely met these days. Meetings were dangerous for both men. When it became urgent that Bergemann talk to Willi, he called Edvin Lindstrom at the Swedish consulate. Bergemann left a coded message, and Lindstrom got back to him with a meeting time and place Willi had chosen. It had been easier when Willi was in Munich, but now, because the hunt for Willi had gotten broader and more intense, they met in the Bavarian Forest, two hours northeast of Munich, not far from Schloß Barzelhof where Willi had been in school, and not far from the Czech border.
Eberhardt von Hohenstein, Willi’s schoolboy nemesis, had outgrown his cruelty during his final years at Barzelhof and had become an exemplary university student. He was ashamed of his earlier behavior toward Willi and Andrea Welke, and eventually sought both of them out to ask for their forgiveness.
After serving in the trenches in the Great War, Eberhardt became a diplomat, as his father had been before him. He was a devout democrat, served throughout the Weimar time in various foreign outposts, and then left the government when Hitler became chancellor. Germany’s interests at home and abroad were no longer interests he could represent.
Eberhardt retired with his wife, his daughter-in-law and a four-year-old grandson (Eberhardt’s son was away in the army) to the estate that had been in the von Hohenstein family since the middle ages. They lived in one wing of the gigantic stone and timber manor house. Eberhardt oversaw five thousand hectares of farm and forest. His staff of foresters and farmers lived, along with the small household staff, in the dependencies built around a courtyard in front of the house. A flock of chickens pecked in the dust and six or eight dogs lay about, getting up only to move when the sun had shifted and left them in the shade.
Willi was staying in one of the logging huts that were scattered throughout the vast forest. ‘Stay as long as you need to, Geismeier,’ Eberhardt had said. ‘You’ll be safe here.’ The hut was four kilometers from the house on a narrow, straight two-track road, which then went on for many more kilometers through endless pine forest. Eberhardt had used this particular hut himself as a sort of retreat, and Willi had stayed there during his first flight from Munich. There was a cot, a table, two chairs, a cast-iron cook stove, cookware, tableware, lanterns, and other necessities. There was a radio that worked with a crank and had a wire antenna strung between two ancient pines. Eberhardt would drive out to the cabin every so often with a basket of food and a bottle of wine or some bottles of beer. It was summer and Eberhardt and Willi would sit outside and talk.
Willi worked for Eberhardt as a woodcutter, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Eberhardt had lost several young woodcutters to the army. Willi wanted to get his strength back, and pulling the crosscut saw helped him do that.
Eberhardt was a reader like Willi, but he read mostly German literature. He brought Willi books Willi knew of but hadn’t read. In turn, Willi suggested some Shakespearean plays Eberhardt didn’t know.
Willi hadn’t read Kafka before. He had the sense when he read The Metamorphosis and then The Trial that he was reading about his own life. ‘You know, Willi, in a sense Kafka’s stories are all crime stories. Perfect for an ex-cop. They’re about crime and punishment. For Kafka, of course, human existence seems to be both the crime and the punishment.’
Bergemann had driven east for two hours. He had stopped twice to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Willi’s was the shorter trip. He had to walk the four kilometers to the house, and then drive one of Eberhardt’s farm trucks to a rendezvous point some distance from the estate. Reinhard was now obsessed with killing Willi, and he had let the Gestapo and SS know that Geismeier was public enemy number one. There were several teams of Gestapo on Willi’s trail. They knew Willi would probably be somewhere where he had connections or knew his way around, and one such place was the Bavarian Forest near Schloß Barzelhof. Eberhardt had learned there was a Gestapo team in Passau asking questions.
Willi and Bergemann met just inside an abandoned train tunnel near Spiegelau. Willi looked better than he had the last time Bergemann had seen him. His body had thickened up again. His hair had grown back, although now it was white. He still carried a haunted look in his eyes.
Willi had already heard about Altdorfer’s interest in Reinhard. ‘He’s been asking anyone and everyone questions,’ said Willi.
‘He’s pretty clueless as a detective, but he’s not stupid. I think he’s serious about finding the killer. And Reinhard looks like his leading candidate.’
‘Does he have the nerve?’ said Willi. ‘He’s a washed-up captain up against one of Himmler’s disciples.’
‘Actually, I think he does have the nerve. But there’s only one way to know. So do we keep feeding him “suggestions” that will lead him to Reinhard?’
‘We could,’ said Willi, ‘but in the time it might take, Reinhard could kill again.’
‘What if we just feed him the information?’
‘He’d trace it right back to you, Hans,’ said Willi.
‘Well, what about someone not connected to either of us?’
‘That’s a good idea.’ Willi considered for a moment. ‘I think I know just the person.’
Heinz Schleiffer Gets a Letter
It was Friday. Trude Heinemann, the mail lady, was worn out. Not just today either. Every day her knees hurt and were swollen by day’s end. She needed aspirin at night just to be able to sleep. The mail bag she carried six days a week seemed heavier than ever. She had asked for an inside job, but those jobs – sorting the
