Self's Murder (11 page)

I didn’t react immediately, but then I saw the yard gate beginning to swing shut, threw the gear into reverse, and made it out just in time, with only a few scratches to the front fenders. Samarin was running alongside the car, trying to get the door open. “Faster!” Welker kept shouting, holding on to the door from inside. “Faster!”

I floored the gas pedal and raced over the Schlossplatz into the Schlosstrasse. “Quick, give me your cell phone!” Welker said, reaching over to me.

“I don’t have one.”

“Damn!” He slammed his fists down on the dashboard. “How can you not have a cell phone?”

I pulled into a parking lot in the Hebelstrasse and stopped in front of a public phone where he could use my phone card. “Not here! Let’s go where there are lots of people!”

It was Sunday noon and the parking lot was still empty. But what was he afraid of? That Samarin and a few young men in suits would turn up and abduct him? I drove to the Schwetzingen train station, which wasn’t exactly pulsating with life, but there were taxis, a waiting bus, a newsstand, an open ticket counter, and some passengers. Welker took my phone card, his eyes darting in all directions, and went to a phone. I saw him pick up the receiver, insert the card, dial a number, wait, and begin to talk. Then he hung up and leaned against the wall. He looked as if he would collapse if the wall weren’t there.

I waited. Then I got out and walked over to him. He was crying. Crying silently, tears running down his cheeks, gathering on his chin, and dripping onto his sweater. He didn’t wipe them away. His arms hung limply at his sides, as if bereft of all power. He suddenly noticed that I was standing in front of him. “They’ve got my children. They drove off with them half an hour ago.”

“Drove off? Where to?”

“Zurich, back to their boarding school. But they’ll reach the boarding school only if I go back to Samarin.” He straightened up and wiped away his tears.

“Please tell me what’s going on. What are you mixed up in? What is this all about?”

“As a private investigator, are you pledged to silence? Like a doctor or priest?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. He began to talk and talk. It was a cold day, and after a while my legs and stomach began to hurt from standing. But his flow of words didn’t stop, and I didn’t interrupt him. A woman wanted to use the phone, so we got back into the car. I started the engine and put the heater on high, whatever the damage to the environment. He ended up weeping again.

H
is story began in August 1991. There had been a failed military putsch in Moscow. Gorbachev’s star was on the wane, Yeltsin’s on the rise. Gregor Samarin had proposed that Weller & Welker send him to Russia to look into investment opportunities; the failed putsch signified that the fate of Communism was sealed and that the triumph of capitalism was unstoppable. This was the perfect moment, he argued, to make investments in Russian enterprises, and with his knowledge of Russia, its language, and its people, he could guarantee Weller & Welker a competitive edge.

Until then Samarin had been a jack-of-all-trades at the bank: chauffeur and errand boy, a handyman at the bank and the apartment, someone who could help out as a teller and with the bookkeeping and filing. He had completed high school but had not been interested in continuing with his studies—nor did anybody encourage him to. Even as a schoolboy he had made himself useful, and it was quite convenient that he was even more available now. He lived in the servant’s room in old Herr Welker’s house in the Gustav-Kirchhoff-Strasse and was paid a modest salary and given a little extra whenever he wanted to buy something or go on vacation. But he rarely asked for anything. He had studied Russian at school because of his mother, and he traveled to Russia once a year. He drove cars handed down to him by the two families. He had become a fixture.

Everyone was taken aback by his idea about Russia. But then again, why shouldn’t he be given a chance to prove himself? If nothing came of it, he would at least have gotten out and about and had a vacation of sorts. If something did come of it—which nobody really believed would happen—then so much the better. It was decided that he would be sent to Russia.

Samarin stayed there for almost six months. He kept in touch with regular phone calls, faxes, and telegrams. He proposed a series of investments in the energy sector, from electrical power plants in Moscow and Sverdlovsk to securing drilling options in Kamchatka. From time to time he introduced Russian businessmen who were looking to invest money in the West, who would then turn up in Schwetzingen. None of his schemes panned out, nor did the Russian businessmen. But Gregor Samarin returned to Germany a changed man. Not only did he bring back a Russian accent, he also dressed and comported himself as if he were one of the bank’s directors. Old Herr Weller had just retired and moved to the assisted-living section of the Augustinum. Bertram and Stephanie didn’t want to hurt Gregor. Hadn’t they resolved to be different as directors than their fathers had been and to avoid all arrogance and conceit? Hadn’t Bertram and Gregor grown up together? Hadn’t Gregor always been fully committed to the families and their bank?

Then Gregor began talking about Weller & Welker initiating a takeover of the Sorbian Cooperative Bank, and Bertram and Stephanie tried to make him see why a takeover would be a mistake. The future of Weller & Welker lay in investment counseling, not in handling small savings accounts. The bank had survived the crisis of the eighties by downsizing, drop ping everything that was inessential, and concentrating exclusively on what was essential. But Gregor Samarin wouldn’t let go. One day he came back from a trip to Berlin and announced that he had completed negotiations he’d been involved in for weeks with the Treuhand Agency, which was privatizing former East German state institutions such as the bank, and that he had bought the bank for a song. He had forged a power of attorney, and they could report him, take him to court, and have him thrown in prison if they liked; if they took action fast enough they could perhaps even cancel the deal with the Treuhand Agency. But how would that look for Weller & Welker? How thrilled would their clients be, reading about all the turmoil in the firm? Wouldn’t it make more sense to let him handle the Sorbian Cooperative Bank? He’d get it back on its feet. It was the bank of the common man, and he knew all about the common man since he was one himself. Didn’t Weller & Welker owe him the chance?

Bertram and Stephanie gave in, and to their surprise it seemed to work. After a year, the Sorbian bank might not have been showing a profit, but it wasn’t showing a loss, either—and this despite the extensive modernization of its main branch in Cottbus and the branches in the provinces, and despite all the Sorbian Cooperative employees having been kept on, as the Treuhand Agency had been promised as part of the takeover. It seemed that the East Germans had more money than was generally assumed. Gregor Samarin also seemed to have the knack of procuring subsidies from local, state, and European institutions. An East German success story!

Until Stephanie caught on. She didn’t trust the pretty picture, didn’t trust Gregor, and had no scruples about peeking into Gregor’s filing cabinet or his computer. An émigré Russian economist whom she hired in Berlin helped her figure out what she didn’t understand. She told Bertram what she found out, and together they confronted Gregor. They gave him a month to remove himself and his dirty deals from their bank and their lives. They would not go to the police, but they didn’t want anything to do with him.

Gregor’s reaction was quite unexpected. He had no idea what had gotten into them. He had done them no wrong, he had even furthered their business, and now they wanted to ruin him. He was a businessman—he had obligations and could not afford not to fulfill them. He was going to stay right where he was! And while they were at it, he was sick and tired of having to transport the money from the West to Cottbus. Henceforth, he’d collect the money and feed it into the system right here in Schwetzingen.

“We’re giving you one month to remove yourself,” Stephanie said, “and that’s that. Don’t force us to go to the police.”

Two weeks later Stephanie was dead. If Bertram wasn’t prepared to play Samarin’s game, his children would be next—first one, and then the other—and in the end it would be his turn. Samarin wasn’t about to give up all he’d worked for.

The children were then sent to school in Switzerland, with two young men in dark suits or in ski suits, in tennis or jogging outfits, or in hiking gear—always at their sides. Bertram had been forced to explain to the headmaster that the men were bodyguards; after the mysterious disappearance of their mother—involving a possible case of abduction or blackmail—one couldn’t be too careful. The headmaster had no objections. The young men kept a certain discreet distance, to the extent they could.

“As for me,” Welker continued, “you yourself have seen what I’ve been reduced to. I had to move from my house to the bank, and I haven’t been allowed to take a single step on my own. Then you showed up, and I managed to draw you into all this with the tale of the silent partner. In Gregor’s view, your investigation would hardly pose a threat; not to mention that he was worried that you’d grow suspicious if he threw you out. I didn’t hire you because of this idiotic silent partner. I was hoping all along that you’d realize what was going on at my bank and that you’d be at hand when the time came. But you weren’t.”

I looked at him blankly.

“No, no, I’m not reproaching you; far from it. I’d only hoped you might notice what was going on. I’d hoped it might be a sign to you that something wasn’t right at the bank when Gregor wouldn’t let me call you, when he didn’t give a damn about what I said, or that time when he exploded and ordered me to believe what he says, or when the attaché case was so important to him while I didn’t show any interest in it. I’d also hoped you’d come earlier today. But I’d hoped, too, that the children would stay longer. I wanted to get out of Gregor’s grip with your help while the children were visiting some friends of mine in Zurich. Do you see what he’s done? He has gotten himself double insurance: if the children elude his grip he still has me, and if I elude his grip—for instance, at a business meeting or social occasion, where he cannot intervene in what I say—then he’s got the children. While they were at my friends’ place in Zurich, he lost them. Now he’s got them again.”

“We should go to the police.”

“Are you out of your mind? They’ve got my kids. They’ll kill them if I go to the police.” He stared at his hands. “The only place I can go is back to the bank. That’s the only place I can go.” This time he cried like a child, sobbing pitifully, his shoulders shaking.

I
assured Welker that there was no reason he couldn’t wait a few hours before going back. Nothing would happen to the children as long as Samarin couldn’t get in touch with him. The children would be of no use to Samarin if they were dead; he needed them in order to threaten Welker. And he could only do that if he managed to talk to Welker.

“How is waiting going to do any good?”

“A few hours without Gregor Samarin—isn’t that something? I’d like to have a word with an old friend of mine, a retired police officer. I know you don’t want to hear of the police being involved. But things can’t go on this way, neither for the children nor for you. Something has to give. And we can do with all the help we can get.”

“Well, go ahead.”

I called Nägelsbach and then Philipp. I asked Philipp if we could use his apartment as a meeting place, since Gregor’s men knew where I lived and probably had already followed me to Nägelsbach’s and Brigitte’s. Avoiding the autobahn, we meandered over Plankstadt, Grenzhof, Friedrichsfeld, and Rheinau to Philipp’s apartment at the Waldparkdamm. There was no blue Mercedes anywhere to be seen, nor a black or green one, and there were no young men in dark suits. On the Stephanienufer promenade along the Rhine, couples who had already had lunch were pushing baby strollers while barges chugged along the river.

Welker was wary. Nägelsbach brought his wife, and Philipp insisted, if we were going to get together at his place, on being present and listening in. Welker looked from one of us to another and then glanced at Philipp’s bedroom door, which stood ajar, revealing the mirror on the ceiling above the water bed. He turned to me and said, “Are you sure that …”

I nodded and began to tell his story. From time to time he added something, finally taking over himself. In the end, he began to cry again. Frau Nägelsbach got up, sat on the armrest of his chair, and hugged him.

“No longer my kind of world,” Nägelsbach said, shaking his head sadly. “Not that everything in my world was right—I wouldn’t have become a policeman if it had been. But money was money, a bank was a bank, and a crime was a crime. Murder was driven by passion, jealousy, or desperation, and if it was driven by greed, it was burning greed. Calculated murder, laundering millions, a bank that’s a madhouse in which the insane have locked up the doctors and nurses—all that is foreign to me.”

“Oh, that’s enough,” Frau Nägelsbach said irritably. “You’ve been talking like this for weeks now. Can’t you forget being grouchy about your retirement and come to grips with it and tell this poor fellow and your friends something that might be useful to them? You were a good policeman. I was always proud of you and want to continue being proud.”

Philipp stepped in. “I understand him. It’s no longer my kind of world, either. I’m not quite sure why: the end of the Cold War, capitalism, globalization, the Internet? Or is it that people no longer have morals?” I must have been staring at him nonplussed. He stared back coolly. “You seem to think that morality isn’t my thing? The fact that I have loved many women doesn’t mean I don’t have any morals. Let’s not forget that wherever money’s being laundered, women are being exploited, too. No, I’m not prepared to give up my world without a fight, and I hope the rest of you aren’t, either.”