Dead Woods (21 page)

Before Max could open his mouth, Lina leaned forward and said in a low voice, “But I don’t believe that it was by accident, Frau Ansmann. I also don’t believe it’s a coincidence that your partner died at the exact moment when you could really use the money from his life insurance to help with your father’s threatened bankruptcy.”

Katja Ansmann scrutinized her coolly. “Did your father tell you that?”

Lina couldn’t breathe for a moment. How did this woman know who her father was?

Katja Ansmann smiled. “So it’s true. It’s the only explanation, since nobody but my family and your father were aware of the situation.”

Max was looking from one woman to the other as though wondering in what movie he had landed. Neither Lina nor Frau Ansmann paid any attention to him.

Lina felt dizzy and, in a strange way, exposed. She realized to her dismay that she and Katja Ansmann were at a standoff: each of them knew something that the other was more than reluctant to share. They measured each other in silence, bound together by their secrets and asking themselves whether they could trust each other. Lina noticed only now that Katja Ansmann’s eyes, which rested on hers sternly, were gray.

The management consultant finally broke the silence. “As you probably know, you quite closely resemble your half sister, Johanna.” She sighed. “You father just happened to be there when my father told us that the Ansmann & Son Bank might go under. The family is, of course, doing everything to avoid bankruptcy. But,” she added with a thin-lipped smile, “I can assure you that we don’t consider murder an option.” She gave Lina a slightly amused look. “Besides, we’re talking about substantially higher sums than the three million from the life insurance. I thought even you would realize that.”

It took Lina’s breath away. Her ears were ringing. This arrogant bitch and her condescending grin! She clenched her fists, one more word from this woman and she’d snap, she’d beat her up, she’d show her what she thought of her—this rich cow who felt nothing but contempt for people like herself, this, this . . .

“I do believe that Frau Svenson knows that,” Max said just then in a calm voice. “It’s rather a question of whether the money might come in handy for you personally.”

Lina forced herself to breathe in deeply and then slowly exhale. She relaxed her cramped fingers and listened to Max’s voice, which, as always, had a soothing effect on everyone present. “Your management consulting firm is a daughter company of the Ansmann & Son Bank, and so you would be directly affected by a bankruptcy.” He nodded slowly, while Katja Ansmann turned her head away and looked out the window. It had started to rain again. “I understand your fear of losing all of this”—the sweep of his hand encompassed not only the apartment but an entire lifestyle—“but I’m sure you’ll understand that we have to investigate every suspicious fact.”

Katja Ansmann had turned pale, but she sat up with a very straight back and jutted out her chin. It was obvious that the conversation made her uncomfortable, especially Max’s softly spoken words, his matter-of-fact talk about her fear, as if there were absolutely no doubt that it existed. It was quiet in the room. The only sound was the soft breathing of three people. Finally, Katja Ansmann turned to Max again, ignoring Lina. “You’re right. It’s difficult for me to imagine giving up what I’m used to, what I cherish. And yes, the insurance money could prevent the worst. But,” she raised her voice and looked directly at him, “I assure you that I had nothing to do with Philip’s death. I spent the entire evening with my friend Evelyn Riemann, who would, of course, testify to that in court.”

She can testify as much as she wants
, Lina thought,
but that doesn’t negate the theory of a possible contract killing
. She could feel rage rising inside her again. She had to leave this place—now—or who knew what might happen. She got up, looked at Max, and ignored Katja Ansmann, the same way she had been ignored by her before. “Do you have additional questions?” she asked her colleague, who obligingly shook his head and got up, as well.

Almost out the door, she couldn’t help herself and turned to Katja Ansmann again, scrutinizing her from top to bottom. “You may, of course, again lodge a complaint with the chief of police, but it will not influence our investigations.”

She never saw Katja Ansmann’s puzzled look.

It drizzled outside and Max opened his umbrella.

“The arrogant bitch!” Lina cursed, stomping ahead of him.

“Lina . . .” Max almost had to run to catch up with her.

“And I don’t buy it that she’s no longer in contact with Daniel Vogler. Who knows how long her old man’s bank has been in the dumps.”

“Lina . . .” Max raised his voice, but she simply went on talking.

“I’ll call Marita Schön at White-Collar Crimes again. She should grill her—and Daniel Vogler, as well.”

“Lina, could you please tell me what the hell just happened in there?” Max had stopped and now held her by the sleeve. Grudgingly, she turned around. His face was a question mark.

“How come your fathers know each other? And how come I only found this out now? Does Hanno know?”

She stared at him, tore herself away, and stomped off in the direction of the car. She remained stubbornly silent on the way until they stopped in front of a coffeeshop, where, as Max knew, the coffee was to her liking. He stood in line for both of them, and when he brought her latte macchiato to the little table by the window, she mumbled a quiet thank you.

Eventually she leaned back, stretched out her legs, and looked at the street outside, where only a few people were visible since it still was raining. The tables for smokers in front of the café stood empty, as did the tables in front of the bakery on the other side of the street.

“My father is Meinhart Steinhagen,” she said in such a soft voice that Max thought he hadn’t heard right. She picked up the sugar dispenser, shook some on her foamed milk, and ate it with a spoon.

Max said nothing. For the longest time he just looked at Lina as if he were considering notifying the psychological support team that took care of traumatized colleagues during a crisis. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Your father is
the
Meinhart Steinhagen?”

Lina nodded.

Every child in Hamburg knew that name. The Steinhagen family had been part of Hamburg for generations, their ancestors had been among those who signed the founding documents of the city, and at times more than half of Hamburg had belonged to them. While those times were long gone, even today many streets, squares, and buildings bore the family name. Meinhart Steinhagen was a ship owner, banker, and merchant. He had been a senator, had received an honorary doctorate from the local university, and was a friend of everyone who was rich and famous in Hamburg, and beyond.

Max was speechless. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened to him. “But how . . . I mean your name’s Svenson, and you aren’t married—and why have you never said anything?”

“I was an illegitimate child, and I’d be much happier if he weren’t my father.” Her secret was out now and she had no idea what the consequences would be. She had carefully arranged her entire life to keep anyone from finding out, out of fear that people would consider her one of
them.
She shuddered at the thought that anyone would talk about her in the same breath as someone like Katja Ansmann. What a disgrace for someone proud to be from Altona, the ancient working class district, where Hamburg moneybags had for ages only dared to venture under police protection. Having a father like that was worse than having scabies.

Max was watching her clear, measured movements and knew that she must be boiling inside, that the calmness she projected was the concentrated quiet of a fighter before an attack. If her father—with whom she seemed to have a tense relationship, to put it mildly—was one of Hamburg’s richest men, it explained quite a few things. Max no longer had to guess where her striking revulsion for wealth and pretension came from.

“Tell me about him,” Max said. There was an unusual authority in his voice, which Lina found difficult to ignore. Maybe she also no longer wanted to be silent, since she had been silent for so long. She nevertheless took her time before answering. When she finally began to speak, her voice was calm and matter-of-fact, as if the story had nothing to do with her.

“Until I was sixteen, I thought my father had been a vacation fling of my mother’s, some guy from London named Alistair, whose name and address she didn’t know.” She shrugged and looked at Max for the first time since they had sat down in the café. “At least that’s what she always told me, and that’s what’s written on my birth certificate: father unknown. I never missed my father as a child since, after all, there was Christian, my mom’s boyfriend. He was my father then and still is today, even though I’ve always known that he wasn’t my biological father.” She looked out the window again. “When I was sixteen, I participated in a meeting of students from the Hamburg metropolitan area. The student representatives of all schools attended, from all districts. The one from the Johannes Brahms School in Blankenese was an arrogant bitch. I couldn’t stand her from the very start.” She grinned wryly. “Johanna Steinhagen. She epitomized my image of the enemy. I grew up in Altona, and Rosa Luxemburg hung on the wall in my bedroom and watched over my sleep. My mother dragged me to demonstrations when I was no more than three, and by eight I knew that capitalism stinks. And there sat this rich Hamburg bimbo and I was supposed to politely discuss school politics with her.” She laughed. “I think we only snapped at each other during the entire conference, and it got on everybody else’s nerves. The worst thing was that we couldn’t help but notice how similar we actually were. It wasn’t just us; others saw it, too. Almost like Erich Kästner’s
Lottie and Lisa.
Though we didn’t look like twins, we easily could pass for sisters.” She took another spoonful of the sweet foam. “I told my mother about it in the evening. I wanted to believe it was a dumb coincidence, but at the same time all kinds of stupid scenarios crossed my mind: maybe I was adopted; or my father from London also had a fling with the mother of this Johanna, before she had married Meinhart Steinhagen. And maybe I could find my biological father through her.” Lina sighed and sipped her coffee. “My mother wasn’t all that excited when I told her of the strange meeting, but also not surprised. ‘At one point you were bound to find out,’ she said and then told me that Meinhart Steinhagen is my father.”

She hadn’t believed it at first. One of Hamburg’s richest men, who owned many buildings that her mother and her mother’s friends had occupied in the past, was her father? The man who counted the most important men of the city and the entire country among his friends, of whom it was said he could easily win City Hall if he finally decided to run for mayor—this man was supposed to be her father? Her mother had sighed. “I didn’t know it when we got close,” she had told her. “We met at a district initiative, and he called himself Marc.” Lina had meanwhile found out that this was his middle name. He started to flirt with Asta Svenson, they ended up in bed, and five weeks later Asta found out she was pregnant. She hadn’t seen Marc in two weeks, nobody knew where he was, and nobody knew how to reach him. A short time later, someone came across a picture of the young Steinhagen in the newspaper and it was all crystal clear. Asta had fallen prey to a rich capitalist pig, who had only participated in the initiative as a spy. She felt embarrassed and told nobody of the fling, which, fortunately, no one had caught on to. She did want to keep the child and didn’t believe for one moment that she wouldn’t be able to love it just because of who the father was. She acted secretive when asked who the father was, and had “father unknown” entered on the birth certificate, even though Christian, whom she met shortly after Lina’s birth, offered to also officially become the father of the child.

“Does Christian know who my father is?” Lina had asked her mother that evening when she found out the entire story. She still didn’t fully believe it. Her mother had painted the father from London so vividly; especially when she had imitated his Cockney accent, Lina had often felt her father speaking to her with her mother as a medium. Asta had looked at her daughter and shaken her head. “Nobody knows, other than you and me.”

But it turned out that the striking resemblance between the girl from a good family and the smart-alecky brat had led to questions elsewhere. Shortly after her mother’s revelation, Lina received a call from Meinhart Steinhagen. He said he had found out that she was his daughter and would like very much to meet her. Lina refused. She said her father was Christian and called Meinhart Steinhagen a liar.

He had laughed. “There’s no father listed on your birth certificate,” he said. Lina had to sit down. If he knew what her birth certificate looked like . . . Had her mother gone behind her back and contacted him? She felt betrayed, slammed the receiver down, and ran out of the house. For several days, she was hanging out on the street or with friends until her mother finally found her and assured her that she hadn’t spoken to Meinhart Steinhagen in more than sixteen years.

Lina sighed and looked at Max, who hadn’t said anything all this time. “He wouldn’t give up. He tried again and again. At last curiosity got the better of me, and we met at the Ohlsdorfer cemetery.” She grimaced. “A strange place for a first meeting between father and daughter, I know, but in a way it was fitting. Our relationship was dead on arrival.”

The Ohlsdorfer cemetery, located in the north of Hamburg, is the largest parklike cemetery in the world, a spacious, elaborately designed development, in which many of the best long-established Hamburg merchant families have mausoleums, among them the Steinhagen family. Her father led her to the grave of her ancestors and, whether she wanted to or not, she felt something like awe for a moment when she saw the ancient moss-covered crypt—and also a certain connectedness with the people who were buried there. It was the first time she realized that her family consisted of more than just her mother and Christian. Asta Svenson was an only child. Her father, a member of the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein, immigrated to Denmark soon after Lina was born, without taking his wife and daughter along. Asta’s mother came from a worker’s family in Kiel without a long or illustrious history. And now Lina was standing at the grave of her ancestors, some of whom had been resting here since the cemetery was opened in 1877. Lina quickly turned away and rubbed her arms as if she were cold, though it was a warm day. She furtively glanced at the man next to her. At the time, Meinhart Steinhagen must have been in his mid-to-late forties. He wore a custom-made suit, a tie, and custom-made leather shoes. As if that weren’t enough, he had arrived in a massive BMW and reeked of an expensive aftershave lotion.