A Murder in Auschwitz (22 page)

Meyer was astonished. He knew him? He searched his memory for any SS officers he had met in the past few years, but he was certain he had never known this one.

“Before the war. I was your client.”

Meyer searched his memory. Before the war. Before the war? And then it struck him. “Kolb? Wolfgang Kolb?” he whispered.

The SS officer’s eyes gave nothing away. “I am Hauptscharfuhrer Kolb, Manfred Meyer.”

Berlin, 16th June 1931

IT was a restless night. Meyer was too hot and kicked the sheets from his legs in an attempt to cool down in the lazy draught from the open window.

He opened his eyes and watched Klara’s beautiful sleeping face in the pale moonlight. She was so peaceful it made him melt. Her breathing was slow and deep, and he felt himself matching it. His eyes closed, and he was aware that he was drifting off to sleep again. His thoughts turned to memories, turned to dreams.

It was their wedding day. They had had their celebration, a Jewish wedding for Klara’s mother. It was time to leave the guests behind and Klara’s brother Karl was giving them something. The box. It was a traditional peasant gift. An empty wooden box to put their memories in. It had an outsize keyhole, triangular in shape. A triangular hole with another inverted triangular metal pin inside. Karl handed them the key. A special key for their memories he said. It was the only one which would fit. The only one. The only key which would fit that hole.

Meyer sat up in bed. It was the murder weapon. It did not fit.

Weber stood at his door, rubbing his eyes and holding on to his blue and white striped pyjama bottoms, which were far too big for him.

“Manfred? What time is it?” he yawned.

Meyer pushed past him into Weber’s apartment. “It’s five-thirty. Let me get some coffee on for you.”

“Has Klara finally had enough? Has she thrown you out?” asked Weber, as he shuffled after Meyer. Meyer ignored him and stoked up his stove.

“I know what Deschler knows,” he said. “It came to me in the middle of the night.”

Weber slumped down in his old leather chair. The springs had broken and the webbing had fallen out of the bottom, but he had continued to fill the sinking seat with various cushions. The morning sun danced in shafts of light to the music of the curtains moving in the breeze from his open window.

“What is wrong with your stove?” asked Meyer, holding his hand against it to check the heat.

Weber pointed at a lever underneath the firebox. “Push that down. It lets in more air.”

Meyer pushed down the lever and the fire burst into life.

“You need to get dressed. We have some errands to run this morning before court,” said Meyer.

Weber looked pained. He pushed himself out of the comfortable chair and shuffled through to his bedroom.

By the time he returned, the coffee pot was hot and Meyer was pouring the black liquid into two mismatched cups. Weber threw himself back into his chair and gratefully took the steaming cup from Meyer.

“You know, I didn’t drink coffee before I started at Bauer & Bauer,” remarked Meyer, with a smile.

Weber took a sip from the hot cup. “So, Manfred, now that you have dragged me out of bed at some ungodly hour, forced me to get dressed with my eyes half closed and made me drink last night’s coffee heated up again, can I ask why?”

Meyer rolled his eyes upwards. “I told you that already. When I arrived.”

“You did?” Weber looked confused.

“I know what Deschler is doing. I know why he has kept the prosecution so simple. I know what it is that he is trying to hide. I know what Deschler knows.”

Weber sat up straight in his chair. “Why didn’t you say this when you arrived?”

“I did,” replied Meyer.

“So, is this a secret to be kept from me too?” continued Weber, making Meyer laugh out loud.

“I’m sorry, Otto. It came to me in the middle of the night. Deschler simply brushed over it. I can’t believe we didn’t see the significance of it right from the start. The murder weapon, Otto.”

Weber raised his eyebrows. “The weapon itself wasn’t determined, but in an upholstery workshop there is a multitude of possible weapons. There was a whole row of scissors hanging up right next to Pfeiffer's body.”

“You are right, Otto, in an upholsterers there are plenty of sharp implements which could be used as a weapon. But only one which could make a wound that shape. Come on, finish your coffee. There is an upholstery company just round the corner from here, where the upholsterer has his apartment above the workshop. Let’s get him out of bed.”

The courtroom was silent as Wolfgang Kolb took the witness stand. Deschler had warned Meyer that it was always a risk having your client take the stand. Legally, the prosecution could not call the defendant. Only the defence could do that. However, once the defendant was on the stand and the defence had concluded their cross-examination, then the prosecution could have a field day. On the other hand, it allowed the defendant to tell their story and the jury to hear the voice of the man that they may be sending to prison, or perhaps even to his death.

As Kolb took the oath, Meyer glanced over at Deschler. He was impossible to read. It was one of the things that made him such an extraordinary lawyer. Meyer took to his feet with the list of events which Deschler had made so simple to follow.

“Herr Kolb, can you tell me why you were working late on a Saturday evening?” Meyer asked.

It had been Deschler’s practice to start with simple, unnecessary questions for his own client. It gave them a chance to get used to speaking in the courtroom, ‘to find their legal voice’, as he put it. Meyer followed the same strategy.

“It was to finish off a big job. We had completed work on the two sofas, four armchairs, and twenty-four dining chairs from a town house on Nollendorfplatz. We just had the final sofa to finish and we would be done. Herr Pfeiffer wanted Josef and myself to have the job completed by the end of Saturday so it could be delivered back on Monday morning,” came Kolb’s confident reply. Meyer had warned him to be careful of his tone. He should be confident in his answers to show that he was truthful but also humble so that he did not appear cocky and unlikeable. He hoped that Kolb would remember this.

“You had been working all day on this sofa?” he asked.

“After finishing off the last of the dining chairs, yes.”

“At what point did you decide to go to the beer hall?”

“I am not sure. It was just after Herr Pfeiffer had gone home, probably around six o’clock. Josef suggested that once we had finished the piping around the arms, we should take a well-earned break and go to the beer hall across the street.”

“How long did that take you, before you went to the beer hall?”

“Around an hour. As soon as we had finished, we headed straight across. We didn’t even put on our jackets.”

Meyer checked the small list of events which Deschler had so eloquently laid in front of the jury. Next was the argument in the beer hall. He would need to be careful with his questions on this point. He wanted Kolb to give a reasonable account of the argument; not blow out of proportion but not dismiss it entirely either. He wanted the jury to see it as a simple argument which any two men could have.

“Can you tell me how many beers you and Josef Pfeiffer had in your time in the beer hall?” he asked.

“Yes, we had two each.”

“Herr Kolb, there are witnesses in the beer hall who have stated that an argument broke out between yourself and Herr Pfeiffer. Can you explain the subject of that argument?”

“Yes, there was an argument,” confirmed Kolb. “I regret it still. It was about Kristin, Josef’s sister.”

“Can you explain what this argument entailed?”

Kolb nodded. “It came out of the blue. Everything was okay. We had been working all day together and, after all, we were good friends. We had finished our first beer and the waitress had brought the second one when Josef started talking about Kristin. He knew I liked her and I had asked him before if I could perhaps take her out. He had said no before, but I thought I would ask him again. It was then that he became angry. Not too much at first but then his anger grew, and by the time we had finished our second beer he was shouting.

“We had planned to have three but I didn’t want the argument to continue, so I got up and left. He followed behind me, over the road to the workshop. It is only a few minutes' walk, but when we got there he had calmed down. He still wasn’t happy that I had asked him again when he had said no before, but he did say that he respected the fact that I had asked his permission first.

“We continued working on the sofa. It just had a few hand stitches to be done and it would have been finished. I realised that we had left the beer hall without paying, so I volunteered to go back and settle the bill. The stitching was something that only one of us could do in any case, so I left Josef and returned to the beer cellar.”

“Can you estimate how long it took to leave the workshop, travel to the beer hall, pay your outstanding bar bill, and return to the workshop?” asked Meyer.

Kolb took a few moments as he thought about the question. “At the most, I would guess at fifteen minutes.”

“And can you tell me what you found when you returned to the workshop?”

“Yes, of course,” said Kolb. He then paused for a short while. Meyer saw his arrogant front melt away as he recalled the scene which had met him on his return. “It was terrible. Josef was lying in a pool of blood. The door had been left open and I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

“If you don’t mind, Herr Kolb, could you describe in as much detail as possible what you saw when you returned to the workshop?”

Kolb swallowed hard. “The sofa had been finished. It was the first thing that I noticed. The stitches were in place and we would have been able to close up the workshop and go home.

“But beyond the sofa leaning against a bag of horse hair, was Josef. His face was pure white and blood covered his whole chest. I had never seen a dead body before, but I could see immediately that he was gone. He was my friend, and I ran over to him. I didn’t know what to do, so I tried to pick him up, hold him, as if that would have made any difference to...how he was. As if life would have flowed back into him.” Kolb paused again.

“Can you remember what happened next?” prompted Meyer.

“The next thing I knew was Herr Pfeiffer, shouting. He must have come back to check on us. He was screaming at me to get away from his son. I was so upset, I didn’t know what to do, so I ran.”

“And you were picked up by the police not long after?” asked Meyer.

“Yes, that is right. I had Josef’s blood all over me. It wasn’t long before a policeman stopped me and arrested me.”

“Thank you, Herr Kolb. No more questions.” Meyer had taken a leaf out of Deschler’s book. He had kept it simple, as simple as Deschler had. It was the same simple turn of events. It was the same simple story. But told from Kolb’s point of view. There was nothing for Deschler to use, nothing for him to twist. It was perfect. And he had what Deschler would describe as his 'ace' still to play.

Deschler had asked a few questions of Kolb. A prosecutor would be failing in his duty if he did not cross-examine the defendant. He had tried to trip him up. Asked the same question several different ways in an attempt to get different answers. But to Kolb’s credit, his story never changed, no matter what slant Deschler put on it.

Meyer called his next witness. It was the upholsterer local to Weber’s apartment. Deschler objected to the late witness, but Meyer argued that due to information which had only just been made available to him, an expert witness was required.

Alfred Kaufmann was called to the stand. A white-haired man with stooped shoulders and a thin face took his seat in the witness box. He wore an old-fashioned collarless cream shirt and dark suit.

“Thank you for agreeing to be a witness at such short notice, Herr Kaufmann. Can you tell the court your profession, please?”

“Yes, of course. I am a master upholsterer,” replied the old man.

Weber handed Meyer a long metal tool with a star-shaped blade.

“Can you tell me what this tool is called?” Meyer asked.

“Yes, it’s a star tack hammer,” replied Kaufmann.

“Is this purely an upholstery tool?” asked Meyer.

“Yes. There is something similar that carpenters use, which is much larger. But that hammer is an upholstery tool.”

“Is this the only upholstery tool which would have a star-shaped blade such as this?”

“Absolutely. You wouldn’t need that shape of blade for anything other than preparing star tacks.”

Meyer held up the tool. “This is your star tack hammer, Herr Kaufmann isn’t it? You kindly lent it to me for the purposes of the demonstration today. How many of these do you own?”

“Only one,” came the reply.

“Only one? Why is that?”

“It is a tool which has only one purpose. It is relatively expensive and rarely used. No-one would have more than one.”