The Stronger Sex (44 page)

“And?” I asked.

“He threw the doctor out,” she said. “In the end he physically threw him out of the room, hustled him out with his wheeled walking frame. It's a long time since I saw him so lively, so vital.”

After a moment she said, “I probably ought to get the doctor to come every week, to cheer him up like that.” She laughed.

47

Herbert Klofft died during the week before Christmas, unnoticed and in the night. Frauke heard about it next morning and called me. When I asked her what the cause of death was, she evidently didn't like to say, but then told me that she didn't know for certain, but the woman who had given her the news, a friend of Cilly's who was also a painter, had spoken rather vaguely of symptoms of some kind suggesting poison.

It was a fact, she said, that since that morning there had been a police car and several other cars, probably bringing plain-clothes officers, standing outside the villa. And when she, Frauke, had tried calling Cilly, a man had answered the phone, saying, “This is the Klofft residence,” and adding that no, she couldn't speak to Frau Klofft just now, but if she would leave her name and number he would pass the message on.

I said that as things stood one couldn't rule out the possibility that Klofft had ended his own life. And anyway, if there was any doubt of the cause of death, the police would have turned up to take charge, so better not rush to conclusions.

She said she wasn't rushing to conclusions, just letting me know.

I thanked her and called Hochkeppel, because I thought he might still be at home. Around Christmas he didn't keep office hours very strictly, for one thing because, as his wife had once told me, he liked to help her with the Christmas baking.

It was she who answered. She said he had left home early to go to Frau Klofft, who had called because she had something urgent – very urgent – to discuss with him.

I said yes, that would indeed be so, because Herbert Klofft had died last night. Frau Hochkeppel seemed to be sorry to hear that.

I dismissed the idea of calling Cilly at once, or writing to her with condolences, but of course the news left my mind buzzing.

Was it possible that Cilly had poisoned her husband? I'd been mistaken a number of times in the course of the Klofft case, not only about Herbert Klofft but also about Cilly. In the last resort, however, it seemed to me as if the two of them had come to a kind of arrangement affecting the rest of their lives, difficult as it might be for me to understand. Although of course one couldn't rule out the possibility
that some new quarrel had spontaneously escalated, driving Cilly to such a course of action.

But would such an intelligent woman have committed such an amateurish murder that the GP or emergency doctor would have seen the signs of it at once and called the police?

Hochkeppel didn't turn up at the office until after midday, when Simone called me and said, “He'd like to see you at once, please.”

When I went into his office, he was sitting at his desk, pushing papers back and forth, reading some of them. Then he looked up, rather abstractedly.

“I heard the news,” I said.

“Really? How?”

“From my girlfriend. Frau Leisner, Frauke Leisner. Works for the newspaper.”

“Oh.” He looked at me open-mouthed. “You mean it's in the papers already?”

“No… that is, I don't know.” After a moment I said, “But it wouldn't surprise me, with police cars outside the house. Anyone would notice in a quiet street like that.”

He shook his head, glancing vaguely at his papers.

I asked, “What's the state of… how are the inquiries going?”

He rubbed his chin for a while, and then said, “I don't think it will come to charges of any kind. Of course they brought up the heavy artillery. I don't know what the emergency doctor told them once he'd certified death. Some foam in the front of his mouth. Not the doctor's mouth, Herbert Klofft's. Whitish foam. But they sent the forensics people along, all that hoo-ha, doing their stuff all over the house. That's why Cilly, I mean Frau Klofft, got so upset and called me.”

Called him, I thought, called old Hochkeppel. Not me.

Of course. What had I imagined? Had I thought that Cilly, that interesting old woman, had really fallen for my charms,
that desire had flared up in her again, she had nothing in her head but my broad chest, strong arms, thick hair, smooth skin, all the charmingly silly attributes of youth? Had I thought she'd wanted me at any price?

Yes, she had liked me, that was true. She had even toyed with the idea of what it would be like to… well, a word I preferred not to use. To make love with me. She had challenged me with the coarser, more vulgar terminology she used, which was all the clearer for that. But even at the moment when she drew me into the dimly lit storeroom, she had been in control of what was happening to both of us. And even when that experiment had failed – because of
me
– she hadn't lost her composure. She had been perfectly poised.

It was rather absurd, but I was actually feeling jealous of Hochkeppel, the man she trusted. But even he, as it turned out, could not enjoy that position unreservedly.

Four or five hundred people came to the funeral; the broad paths of the cemetery were sometimes jammed. The city had sent one of the mayors, although he did not give a funeral oration, I assume at the wish of the widow. However, there was music: a wind quintet led the funeral from the chapel to the grave, playing among other things Chopin's
Funeral March
, at a slightly faster tempo than usual so as not to slow down the pace of the crowd too much. Frauke told me that Klofft had sponsored the ensemble.

However, she didn't know most of the mourners. Many of them, of course, were employees or associates of Klofft Valves; perhaps a few had just come for the show. The local rag had published the information two days earlier that the body was being released for burial, now that no suspicious circumstances had been confirmed. The forensic report, together with the police investigations, had concluded that Klofft, suffering as he was from an incurable and very painful illness, had taken his own life. It seemed that he had
used a substance containing cyanide that brought death very quickly.

We had not found anywhere to sit in the chapel, and waited outside until the coffin was carried out. When a good opportunity presented itself, we found ourselves near the front of the procession, and so we reached the graveside quite soon. Frauke pushed her way forward, I followed her, and in the end we were standing on the right of the open grave with a good view of the foot of it, where a tall man in a black suit was obviously waiting for the mourners to be in position and the requisite silence to fall.

I knew the man; his profession was delivering orations for families who were not religious and engaged his services to avoid the awkwardness of a funeral with all the churchy trappings. As far as I knew, he did good business, probably because his appearance and his unctuous voice conveyed the impression that he was in fact presiding at an official ceremony.

I didn't think my client had wanted him. I'd assumed that Klofft was Catholic, and so he probably had been once. Presumably his relationship with the Church had cooled, and I couldn't believe that when he felt death approaching he would have brought himself to ask for a priest – even though these days the Catholic Church buried suicides. It was probably his wife who had engaged the professional orator.

Cilly, wearing a black winter coat and a small hat with a veil, was standing a little way behind and to one side of him. Beside her stood a sturdy man of medium height wearing a black homburg hat and a coat with a black fur collar. Her left arm rested in the crook of his elbow. A brother? A brother-in-law? I had never heard of Klofft or Cilly herself having any such relations. Then I realized that Gaston Weber from Thionville had come to the funeral of his old business acquaintance, the friend who went hunting with him. I felt a small pang.

Hochkeppel and his wife stood behind them, in the second row. I saw Hochkeppel crane his neck now and then to follow what was going on. Did his wife pluck his sleeve when he did it too conspicuously?

Gaston Weber took off his hat when the orator intoned, in his impressive voice, “Lord God, let the light of thy countenance shine upon our brother Herbert, and show him, who has gone before us, the endless power of thy love! Receive him into thy kingdom, and into thy eternal community.”

I wondered if he was there yet. I didn't think he would have to go through purgatory first, and I didn't think that his misdeeds would have sent him straight down to hell. Was the good that he had also done to be entirely forgotten?

I don't know how someone brought up as a believer manages to transfer the allegories of his childhood into the adult world intact. The idea of Klofft's descent into hell made me think irresistibly of the children's story about Little Peter's journey to the moon, and my next thought conjured up another character from the story, the Maybug Master Busy-Buzzer. I was overcome by a desire to laugh, and had to breathe out steadily through my nostrils.

Frauke was looking at me in surprise. I leaned over and whispered, “I was thinking of Little Peter going to the moon.” She called me to order with a severe glance.

What
had
Klofft thought about when he felt Death coming for a final showdown? Heaven? Hell? Had he been frightened?

Had he remembered that summer evening outside Salzburg Cathedral again, and the voice in the distance coming closer and closer, finally yelling in his ear “Everyman!” in a tone that shook him to the marrow?

Had he raised his head from a pillow damp with sweat in the dark of that last night and tried to penetrate the
blackness in the corner of the room from which he had heard his name whispered?

I don't think he was frightened. He had certainly hated getting incurably sick and helpless and staying that way. But in the end he had managed something few can do: he had been a leopard who changed his spots. He had done much harm in his life, but he had not been a coward. And perhaps that is the best than can be expected of a man like Klofft.

The orator drew to a conclusion: “…and usher in the day that brings all to completion. Amen!” As the men carrying the coffin lowered it into the grave, the wind ensemble began to play
Nearer, my God, to thee
.

My thanks to Marlis Kettenbach, my wife, for her ever reliable companionship and help as I wrote the manuscript of this book. Also to Barbara Fetten and Dr Stefan Strunden for their kind advice on legal matters, my friend Klaus Sauer for his criticism and encouragement, my friend Frank Sondermann for information on business and industry, and not least to my editor Ursula Baumhauer, who has yet again supported and helped me whenever I felt myself wavering.

 

When David Ninoshvili arrives from war-torn Georgia, the peaceful existence of a school teacher's family in Germany comes to an abrupt end. Christian Kestner has all but forgotten his stay in Tbilisi seven years before under Soviet rule but when he receives a letter from David announcing his visit, he begins to worry. Why is David coming? To seek revenge for a relationship that Christian had with his wife? To conspire with one of the different factions now vying for the control of Georgia?

 

Christian becomes intensely suspicious of David's secretive ways, jealous of the Georgian's attraction to his wife and even resentful of his relationship with his teenage son. Fear turns into panic, a feeling so corrosive that it almost transforms this most rational individual into a monster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Erika, an attractive local heiress, is married to Wallmann, a man with expensive tastes. When she falls to her death near their lakeside villa, the police conclude it was a tragic accident. Scholten, a long time employee of Erika's, isn't so sure. He knows a thing or two about the true state of her marriage and suspects an almost perfect crime. Scholten's maverick investigation into the odd, inexplicable details of the death scene soon buys him a ticket for a most dangerous ride.