The Collini Case Read online

  Caspar was glad he didn’t have to go home in the holidays. His father had inherited some land in Bavaria, part of a forest. He lived alone in a dark forester’s house dating from the seventeenth cetury. The walls were thick, the windows tiny, and there was no central heating. Antlers and stuffed birds hung everywhere. All through his childhood, Caspar had been freezing cold in that house. Both it and his father smelled of soft liquorice in summer – the smell of Ballistol, the oil used for cleaning hunting guns. Ballistol was also used to treat all manner of ailments: it was rubbed on cuts and aching teeth, and even when Caspar had a cough he was given a glass of hot water with some of the oil in it. The only magazine to be found in the house was all about hunting and shooting. The marriage of Caspar’s parents had been a mistake. Four years after the wedding, his mother had petitioned for divorce. His father said, later, it was really just because she couldn’t stand the way he always went around in gumboots. His mother met another man, known at home only as ‘that upstart’ because he wore a watch that had cost more than the annual income from the forest. Caspar’s mother moved to Stuttgart with her new husband and they had two more children. Caspar stayed with his father in the forester’s house until he went to boarding school. He had been ten at the time.

  ‘OK, I suppose we’d better go in,’ said Philipp. ‘I’m hungry.’

  They climbed down from the roof and went over to the house.

  ‘How about a swim afterwards?’ asked Philipp.

  ‘I’d rather go fishing,’ said Caspar.

  ‘Right, fishing’s a better idea. We can grill the fish.’

  After the cook had scolded them, and the boys had told her they’d been too far off to hear her calling, there were buttered rolls with ham. As usual, they ate in the kitchen, not upstairs with Philipp’s parents. Caspar liked it down there, where countless white kitchen drawers had writing in black ink on them: SALT, SUGAR, COFFEE, FLOUR, CARAWAY. When the postman came in the morning he sat at the table with the boys and they all looked through the senders’ addresses on the letters and read the postcards before they were taken up to Philipp’s parents.

  Every other afternoon Philipp had extra coaching, and Caspar spent that time with Philipp’s grandfather, Hans Meyer, in his office. Sometimes they played chess on a very old board. Meyer was patient with the boy, let him win now and then, and gave him money when he did.

  Hans Meyer still ran the family firm. His grandfather had founded the Meyer Works in 1886, and after the Second World War Hans Meyer had built it up into an international concern. The company manufactured all kinds of machinery, as well as surgical instruments, plastic and packaging. At the beginning of the twentieth century Hans Meyer’s father had bought a huge tract of marshy land outside the city. He brought in architects and landscape gardeners from Berlin to drain the site and to lay it out as a park, with paved drives, gravel and woodland paths, lawns, exotic trees and an avenue of chestnuts. The stream was dammed to form three pools, and an artificial island stood in the largest; you reached it over a pale blue Chinese bridge. There was a tennis court with a red-sand surface, an open-air swimming pool, a nursery garden, a guesthouse and a house for the chauffeur and his family. Down in the park a path led past lilac bushes to an orangery with glass panes set in lead frames. The main house was built in 1904, on a small rise; a flight of steps outside led up to a stone terrace with four round columns. Although there were over thirty rooms, with six garages accommodated in the side wings, the house had a natural look and seemed to belong in the landscape. The window shutters were always painted dark green, and so it was known in the family simply as the Green House. It was a well-chosen name in other respects too, for ivy grew all over one side of the house, and behind it stood eight old chestnut trees. The family ate supper under their tall crowns on summer weekends.

  Hans Meyer was the only person at Rossthal who had time for the children. He told them how to build tree houses without using nails, and where to find the best worms for fishing bait. Once he gave Philipp and Caspar knives with birch-wood handles. He showed them how to cut whistles with the knives, and the boys imagined using them to defend the family against any burglars who broke in at night. That was the last summer to be all theirs. The grown-ups didn’t bother about them, and they had hardly any concept of time longer than a single day. All that was wrong with their world was that the fish didn’t bite and the girls wouldn’t kiss.

  Four years later Caspar met Johanna, Philipp’s sister. He and Philipp were spending all their holidays at Rossthal now. Even at Christmas, it was more fun there than at Caspar’s father’s cold house. It had begun snowing two weeks before the Christmas celebrations began, and now the snow was so deep that the paths in the park looked like mazes when they were cleared. Philipp and Caspar were sitting in front of the tall fireplace in the entrance hall. The family’s three dogs were asleep on the stone floor; they were not allowed in the upper storeys. Philipp was wearing a yellow dressing gown with a plate-sized crest on it; he had found it in a wardrobe in the attic. They were smoking his grandfather’s cigars, looking at the fire and planning what to do over the next few days.

  Franz, the family’s chauffeur, had met Johanna at Munich Airport. She came into the hall through a side door, so Philipp couldn’t see her. When Caspar was about to get up she shook her head and put her forefinger to her mouth. Then she crept up behind Philipp’s chair and covered his eyes with her hands.

  ‘Who am I?’ she asked.

  ‘No idea,’ said Philipp. ‘No, wait, with those rough hands it’s obviously fat Franz!’ He laughed, took her hands away from his face and came round the chair to give his sister a hug.

  ‘Hey, that’s a handsome dressing gown, Philipp,’ she said. ‘And such a bright yellow …’ Then she turned to Caspar. ‘You must be Caspar,’ she said with composure. He blushed. She leaned forward so that he could kiss her on the cheeks, and he got a glimpse of her white bra. Her face was still cold. Like Philipp, she was tall and slender, but everything that was lanky about him looked elegant in her. She had the same dark eyes and arched eyebrows as her brother, but the mouth in her pale, clear face was soft and humorous. She was only a few years older than Caspar, but she was grown up and unattainable.

  She spent the next two days almost constantly on the phone to her friends in England; you could hear her laughter all over the house, and her father was cross because the line was always engaged. When she went back she left a void behind her, although no one but Caspar seemed to notice it.

  Next summer Philipp got his first car, a red Citroën 2CV with white seats. It was the last holidays before their final year at school, when they would be taking the school-leaving exam. As usual the two of them worked on the production line in the Meyer Works for the first half of the holidays and spent their earnings in the second half. They took the car over the Brenner Pass to Venice. Philipp’s great-grandfather had bought an art nouveau villa on the Lido there in the 1920s. Once they had seen all the museums and churches, the days soon merged into each other: they sailed on the lagoon, played tennis and spent the afternoons in beach cafés, on hotel terraces, or lying in the long, dark green shadows on the quay wall. In the evening they took the water bus to Venice, went to the bars in Cannaregio, and strolled at leisure through the nocturnal streets. They were hardly ever back before early morning, when they would sit on the terrace for another hour, listening to the cry of the seagulls, and all was well with their world.

  At the end of the holidays Johanna came from London for a week’s visit. On the day of her departure, she was lying beside Caspar after they had been swimming. She propped herself on her elbows, her hair falling over her face. Suddenly she bent over him and looked into his face. He closed his eyes, feeling her wet hair on his forehead; she kissed him on the mouth, and their teeth clashed. ‘Don’t look so serious,’ she said, laughing, and put her hand over his eyes. Then she ran off, back to the sea, turned once again and called, ‘Come on, then!’ Of course he didn’t, but he watche
d her go, and later he couldn’t remember ever being so happy as on those clear blue days beside the sea.

  Just under a year later, the boys took their final school exams. After the end-of-year celebrations, Philipp’s parents came to drive their son home from the boarding school. On the last bend before you reached the sign saying Rossthal, a low-loader truck laden with timber stood right across the road. It had come out of a field path and had been trying to turn in the narrow lane. The Meyers’ car went right under the articulated truck, and the tree trunks it was carrying sliced the car roof off. Philipp’s head was torn from his body, and his parents bled to death in the road.

  The funeral was held in Rossthal. In church, the priest said what a good son Philipp had been, and what a good grandson, and what a great future he would have had. He didn’t mention the fact that the coffin remained closed because the dead body had no head. The priest wore mauve-framed reading glasses; he stood in front of the congregation making the sign of the cross in the air; he spoke of a better world than this. Caspar felt sick. He left the church before Mass was over. Outside, the gravediggers stood in their suits beside the timber struts on which they would place the coffins later. They were smoking and talking, and they were alive. When they saw Caspar they dropped their cigarettes on the earth and ground them out. He didn’t want to disturb them, so instead he went to the funerary chapel in the cemetery. He sat down on a marble bench and watched the burial from there in the faint light.

  Hans Meyer was burying his son, his daughter-in-law and his grandson. He stood rigid beside the graves, supported by Johanna. He received condolences for four hours on end, saying a few friendly words to everyone. Then he went home and shut himself up in his study. Johanna had herself driven straight to the airport; she didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  Caspar went to see Hans Meyer in his study that evening. He asked the old man if it would be an idea to play chess as they used to. They played in silence, until after a while Hans Meyer stopped. He opened the window and looked out at the dimly lit park.

  ‘This is something that happened when I was a little boy, maybe eight or nine years old,’ said Meyer. He spoke without turning round. ‘I had a red-and-blue shirt. Really bright colours; I’ve no idea what material it was. My uncle had brought it back from Italy. I put my new shirt on and went over to the riding stables. I was there almost every day at the time; I liked the horses a lot. Out in the paddock I saw my mother’s showjumper, a nervous animal. It had already won at a number of shows, and my mother thought she stood a good chance of taking it to the Olympic Games in a few years’ time. Maybe I just wanted to pat the horse that day – I’d often done that before, but I don’t remember now. Anyway, on seeing me the horse reared up and ran into the wooden fencing of the paddock. It took fright, broke its left foreleg and screamed with pain. Horses can scream horribly, and I’d never heard anything like it before. I put my hands over my ears and ran away. That afternoon the forester came and put the poor animal out of its misery.’

  Hans Meyer turned. He was shedding silent tears, but his voice was steady. ‘That evening I was summoned to my father’s study. I sat just where you’re sitting now, at that desk. Parents didn’t talk to their children much in those days. I loved my father, but I was afraid of him. He said I was to blame for the death of the horse, for causing it to die before its time. And I should take better care of what was entrusted to me in future. “Before its time”, those were his words. My father didn’t punish me. He said I ought to think about the horse’s death … A few days later, it was buried in the park by the lower lake. Not the whole horse, of course, only its hooves.’

  ‘I know. Philipp showed me the place once.’ Caspar looked at the old man, his friend. ‘But it wasn’t your fault,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your shirt couldn’t have frightened it. Horses don’t see colours. They see in black and white, that’s all.’

  Hans Meyer leaned on the back of the chair; he smiled. ‘Well, it’s nice of you to say that, Caspar. But it’s not true. Horses can see red and blue.’

  The old man passed the back of his hand over his eyes. He returned to the window, opened both panes and stood leaning against the frame. Caspar got to his feet and went over to him. Hans Meyer turned round and gave Caspar a hug. Then the old man said he’d like to be alone now. When Caspar drove home next morning, he found the old chess set on the passenger seat of his car.

  After the time lost to his military service, Leinen began studying law in Hamburg. He had changed since Philipp’s death: he was quiet these days, things seemed strange to him. He often had a sense of being removed from himself, observing himself from the outside, and moving his body as if by remote control. At such times he thought he might have inherited the dark side of his father’s character.

  He had been back to Rossthal only once since the funeral, when Johanna invited him to her wedding four years after his friend’s death. She was marrying an Englishman twenty years her senior who had been her professor at Trinity College, Cambridge; a kindly man with white eyebrows. Everyone thought him entertaining and charming. When Caspar offered his congratulations outside the church after the wedding ceremony she whispered in his ear, saying how much she missed Philipp, and caressed his cheek. He held her arm tightly, kissed the palm of her hand, and for a brief moment he thought that as a couple they might yet be saved.

  And now, six years later, he called her phone number from his tiny office. She picked the phone up at the first ring.

  ‘Hello, Johanna.’

  ‘At last! I’ve been trying to get in touch ever since yesterday. I didn’t have your mobile number. Caspar, why are you doing this?’

  He was surprised; she sounded furious. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why are you defending that bastard?’ She began to cry.

  ‘Johanna, do calm down. I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’

  ‘It’s all over the media. You’ve taken on the defence of that Italian.’

  ‘But … wait … wait a moment …’ Leinen got to his feet; his briefcase was still on the desk. He fished the arrest warrant out from among the other papers. ‘Johanna, he shot someone called Jean-Baptiste Meyer, that’s what the warrant says.’

  ‘My God, Caspar, “Jean-Baptiste” is only the name in his passport.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You’re going to be defence counsel for my grandfather’s murderer.’

  Hans Meyer’s mother had been French. She called her son Jean-Baptiste, after John the Baptist. But like many of his generation, he didn’t want a long-winded name. If you were called Friedrich in those days you became Fritz; a Reinhard would change his name to Reiner. And Johannes was shortened to Hans. He was known to everyone as plain Hans Meyer; the name was printed that way even on his business cards.

  Leinen pictured the dead man for the first time: Hans Meyer, shot in a hotel room, a puddle of blood, police officers, red-and-white barrier tape. He sat down on the floor with his back to the wall. His father’s desk stood at an angle in the room; a piece of wood had split off one of its legs.

  4

  As usual, no one knew who had been talking to the press. Later, the public prosecutor’s office assumed that there had been an informant in the ranks of the police; too many details were given. In any case, the biggest tabloid in Berlin made ‘Murder in Luxury Hotel’ the lead headline on the front page of its Sunday-evening edition. The name of the killer meant nothing to anyone, but the victim was well known. He was one of the richest men in the Federal Republic: Hans Meyer, owner and chairman of the board of Meyer Engineering Works, holder of the Federal Cross of Merit. Editorial teams in the news media tried to find out more, they sifted through archives, read old reports. Journalists speculated on the motive for the crime. Most of them suspected economic sabotage; no one could say anything for certain.

  The lawyer Professor Richard Mattinger was sprawled on his sofa in his dressing gown, thinking
about his wife. It was almost twenty years since she had found this house on the Wannsee. At that time, eight years before reunification, properties here on the lake had been ridiculously cheap, and new families had moved into the old houses. His wife had been right: the value of real estate had greatly increased in the last ten years. She died soon after she had furnished the house, and Mattinger had refused to change anything in it since then.

  His dressing gown was open, showing the white hair on his chest. He was letting his girlfriend, a very young Ukrainian woman, masturbate him. She told him how much she loved him countless times every day. Mattinger didn’t care. He knew that a relationship like theirs was always a reciprocal business deal – at best agreeable to both parties for a while. He was in his mid-sixties, still fit and active. In the last days of the war, when he was eight years old, a hand grenade had torn off his left forearm. But his eyes were his most striking feature, dark blue and of enormous intensity.

  The telephone rang for the ninth time. Only a few people had his private number, and it must be important if someone was calling him on a Sunday afternoon. When he finally picked up the phone, his girlfriend looked up from between his knees, smiled, and asked if she should go on. It took Mattinger a moment to concentrate his mind. He jammed the receiver between his shoulder and his head, slid a notepad across the coffee table towards him and began taking notes. When he had hung up again, he got to his feet, closed his dressing gown, caressed the girl’s head and went into his study without a word.

  Half an hour later, he had his driver take him to his chambers. On the way, he called one of the young lawyers he employed and asked him to come to the office. Mattinger had acted for the defence in the terrorist trials of the 1970s in Stammheim Prison; his appearances in court had been media events. A weekly magazine had once written of him that he had a mind of ‘almost dazzling intelligence’. In those days, perhaps for the first time in German legal history, the rights of the defendants had to be genuinely fought for. At the beginning of the student riots many thought democracy itself was endangered, and terrorists were regarded first and foremost as enemies of the state. Even before the verdict was given, a prison had been built for the defendants. Laws were changed on account of these trials, defence lawyers shouted at the judges, defendants went on hunger strike, and the presiding judge had to stand down from the main trial for reasons of bias. War was waged in court. The defending lawyers learned something new; they became more self-confident, and understood, better than ever before, that justice can be done only in a fair trial. It was too much for many of them. They made common cause with their clients, overstepped the boundary, and became offenders themselves. Tragedies born of rage. Mattinger was different. The public thought he had lent the terrorists his voice, which was clearer and more effective than their own. But that was not so. Of course he had been to demonstrations a few times, had met the students’ spokesmen, but it had alarmed him to see how their own words intoxicated them. In point of fact, Mattinger represented only legality. He was a believer in the constitutional state founded on law.