The Collini Case Read online

  Since then he had acted as defence counsel in almost two thousand trials. He had never yet lost in a murder trial; none of his clients had received a life sentence. But as time went on his clientele changed. First came the speculators and building contractors, then the bankers, the company chairmen, the old-established families. It was a long time since he’d defended a drug dealer, an underworld boss or a murderer. These days he wrote articles in legal journals, he was chairman of a number of legal associations and a visiting professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He lived in an altogether more prestigious world now. He seldom appeared in court; most proceedings against his clients were dropped by the state prosecutor’s office in return for large payments, without ever coming to a full-scale trial. Mattinger still believed in the constitutional state founded on law, but the battles seemed already to have been won. Sometimes, when he was stuck waiting at an airport overnight, he felt as though he had mislaid something. But he didn’t want to stop and work out exactly what.

  By the time he reached his chambers, he had already phoned the murder squad. Of course, he knew the top police officers there, and they came up with enough information for him to form a vague idea of events. Two hours later he had the Meyer Works company lawyer, Holger Baumann, on the phone. Mattinger and the young lawyer from his chambers were sitting in one of the large conference rooms, talking to Baumann on speaker-phone. The company lawyer told them that the firm employed over forty thousand people worldwide, with profits year on year almost 4 per cent above the industry average, and they were on the brink of bringing off the biggest deal in their entire history. The murder of Hans Meyer, former chairman of the board and main shareholder of the company, was a catastrophe, said Baumann. They didn’t want the firm all over the papers. He mentioned the bribery case involving a subsidiary a few years ago, and the trial in which Mattinger had represented a leading employee who worked there. There had been unwelcome publicity in the papers at the time. Baumann sounded nervous. Mattinger remembered that he had never liked the man.

  No one in the firm, Baumann continued, had any idea why Meyer had been murdered. The old man had still been chairman, but he was sure it was nothing to do with the firm. Mattinger was surprised. The crime was only a few hours old, and Baumann could already say he was sure of that.

  The board, he went on, wanted Mattinger to represent the firm in the murder trial. Mattinger explained that that wasn’t possible: only a family member could ask him to act as accessory prosecutor. Most civil lawyers, he added, weren’t aware of it, but that was the law. Baumann promised to see about that, and another hour later there was a fax on Mattinger’s desk from the murder victim’s granddaughter and sole heir, Johanna Meyer, sent from London.

  Mattinger promised Johanna Meyer that he would take care of everything. Tomorrow he would speak to the public prosecution office in Berlin and then report back to all concerned. His young colleague went into his office and did the paperwork.

  At around eleven o’clock Mattinger was home again. His girlfriend was already asleep, in the guestroom as usual. He got himself a glass of iced water from the kitchen and went into the garden. There was a smell of freshly mown grass. He took off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. It was still too hot. He pressed the cold glass to his forehead. The extraordinary meeting of the board in Munich had been fixed for three o’clock the following afternoon. Mattinger wouldn’t have any answers by then. He didn’t even know the right questions.

  5

  Leinen spent the first night after Collini’s arrest writing a petition. He sat at the kitchen table in his apartment with legal textbooks and commentaries open in front of him. There was a small black-and-white TV set on the table as well. Most of the time he kept it turned on with the sound muted. However, when the news headlines came on at ten-thirty there was a short film about the dead man, pictures with a few brief comments: Hans Meyer with Konrad Adenauer, Hans Meyer with Ludwig Erhard, Hans Meyer with Helmut Kohl. The presenter said the motive for the murder was not clear, and the public prosecutor’s office was still investigating. More pictures showed the Hotel Adlon, the remand prison, the police station where the murder squad was based. The alleged murderer, said the presenter, was an Italian citizen.

  At around five in the morning Leinen printed out the petition he had drafted; at seven he had the final version. The text had turned out well, but he wasn’t sure that it would do him much good. He was petitioning to step down from Collini’s defence, asking the examining magistrate to rescind his duty to provide legal aid in this case.

  At seven-thirty he left his apartment. It had been raining, and the air was cool and fresh now. He went to a news kiosk and bought all the daily papers. The murder of Meyer was on nearly every front page.

  On the ground floor of Leinen’s building, two storeys below his apartment, there was a bakery, or rather a ‘bake shop’, an Identikit branch of a large chain. The baker was a very fat man, red-faced, with small hands: his knuckles looked like dimples on the backs of them. He could move surprisingly fast, but he was too stout for the narrow space behind the display shelves, and the counter cut into his big belly, leaving a line of breadcrumbs on his apron. The baker had put three old wooden chairs outside his shop, and in summer Leinen would sit there on the pavement every morning, drinking coffee and eating one of the poor-quality croissants. Sometimes the baker joined him. Today he said Leinen was looking terrible.

  Leinen took the suburban train to the courthouse building. A busker with a guitar went along the carriages bawling out a Bob Dylan song; no one but a few tourists gave him any money. Just after eight Leinen was at the Moabit Criminal Court building.

  The Capital Crimes Department of the public prosecutor’s office was on the third floor, with steel-framed armoured glass in the windows looking out on the corridor. He had done three months’ work experience in this department, and knew most of the public prosecutors here, at least by sight. The court registry office was stacked high with files up to the ceiling, in pigeonholes, on shelves, desks and the floor, arranged according to some unfathomable principle. All the paperwork to do with cases of violent death ended up here. There were files on all kinds of killings: murder, manslaughter, suicide bombings, hostage-taking ending in death. Postcards sent by secretaries when they were away on holiday were pinned up on the walls: sunsets, beaches, palm trees. Computer monitors bristled with photos of children and husbands.

  Leinen gave the reference number of the file and showed the clerk in the registry the document naming him as court-appointed defence counsel. She gave him a thin folder. She too knew Leinen from his work experience here, and wished him luck with the case. It would be difficult for the defence, she said, looking at him sympathetically. Richard Mattinger had already said he would be appearing as counsel in the accessory prosecution. Leinen also learned that the autopsy on the body was to be at one o’clock in the Forensic Institute.

  He took the file and wondered whether he ought to visit his client, but he couldn’t think of anything that he could usefully discuss with Collini. He leafed through the pages while he walked down the corridors to the lawyers’ room.

  The defending lawyers’ common room in the Moabit Criminal Court was a safe haven; no client, no judge, not even the interpreters were allowed in. It had existed since the days of the Weimar Republic, and famous defence lawyers such as Max Alsberg had frequented it in the 1920s. It hadn’t changed much to this day. The lawyers read the newspapers there, phoned the registry offices, wrote their pleas or waited for a trial to resume. You could hire a robe for a euro; the secretary took a note of phone calls, and sometimes offered sweets to lawyers she liked. But above all this was where defence counsel chatted. They exchanged gossip about judges and public prosecutors, discussed trials, shared advice on petitions, made and dissolved alliances. If a judge did not stick to an agreement, or a public prosecutor withheld information, this was where defence counsel heard about it. They talked frankly, admitted to failures and boasted of suc
cess. In here they spoke of their clients in different terms, and cracked jokes about the crimes to help them cope with the stress. The coffee came from a vending machine and tasted of plastic and powdered milk. The furnishings were rather shabby, the upholstery of the sofas threadbare.

  Leinen headed for the copiers at the back of the room, and was still reading the file as he crossed the lawyers’ room. He collided with another lawyer, papers fell to the floor. Leinen apologized, picked the papers up and went on. When he was standing by the copier he saw Richard Mattinger on a sofa reading the newspapers. Leinen went over to him.

  ‘Good morning, Herr Mattinger,’ he said. ‘I’m Caspar Leinen. We’re appearing in the same trial.’

  ‘Fabrizio Collini? The Hans Meyer case?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  Mattinger stood up and shook hands. ‘May I offer you a cup of coffee?’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, yes. It’s good to meet you,’ said Leinen. ‘I went to a lecture you gave on criminal proceedings.’

  ‘I trust I didn’t talk too much nonsense,’ said Mattinger, going over to the coffee maker with Leinen. He put a coin in the slot. The two lawyers waited for the machine to disgorge a brown plastic beaker. ‘I hope no one’s had tomato soup yet this morning, or the next fifty cups of coffee will taste appalling.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s pretty bad to start with.’ They went back to the sofa and sat down.

  ‘Well, congratulations, Herr Leinen, this is going to be a great case,’ said Mattinger.

  ‘Anything but, I’m afraid,’ murmured Leinen.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I’m actually trying to back out of defending the client. I stupidly put myself down on the roster of court-appointed defence counsel, but I can’t go on with the defence in this case. You’ll read about it in the file anyway, so I might as well tell you now.’ And Leinen explained what had happened. Mattinger asked if he could read his petition to withdraw from the case, and Leinen handed him a copy.

  ‘Yes, you put it very well,’ said Mattinger a few minutes later. ‘And what you say is perfectly understandable. I’m just not sure if it’s enough. You know that legally you can be relieved of the duty to give legal aid only if a relationship of trust between you and your client has fallen through. And Judge Köhler is a stickler for the letter of the law. I’d almost call him a technocrat.’

  ‘I’m going to try anyway,’ said Leinen.

  ‘We don’t know each other, Herr Leinen, and you won’t welcome advice from me.’

  ‘No, really,’ said Leinen. ‘I’d like to know what you think.’

  ‘I’m assuming this is your first big murder case?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Leinen, nodding.

  ‘In your place, I wouldn’t put in that petition.’

  Leinen looked at him in astonishment. ‘But … I practically grew up in the Meyer family.’

  Mattinger shook his head. ‘So? In the next trial, the murder may remind you of some tragic childhood experience of your own. And the case after that could keep reminding you of a girlfriend you once had who was raped. Then again, you might not like your client’s nose, or you’ll think the drugs he deals in are the worst evils to afflict mankind. You want to be a defence lawyer, Herr Leinen, so you must act like one. You’ve undertaken to defend a man. Right, maybe that was a mistake, but it was your mistake, not his. Now you’re responsible for the man, you’re all he has. You should tell him about your relationship with the victim, and then ask if he still wants you to defend him. If he does – and this is the only crucial point – you must do your best for him, make an effort, present your case to the best of your ability. This is a murder trial, not a university seminar.’

  Leinen wasn’t sure whether Mattinger was right, or whether he just wanted to be facing an inexperienced adversary in the trial. The old lawyer was looking at him with a friendly expression. Maybe it was both.

  ‘I’ll think it over,’ said Leinen at last. ‘Many thanks anyway.’

  ‘I must be off too,’ said Mattinger. ‘I have to see someone in the commercial law department. But I wonder, would you like to drop in at my chambers this afternoon? Maybe it would make sense for us to discuss a few things.’

  ‘I’d like that.’ Leinen realized that Mattinger would want to find out how, if he stayed with his brief, he was planning to defend Collini. But he very much wanted to know the great lawyer better.

  6

  Watching an autopsy for the first time, you encounter your own death. Modern man isn’t used to the sight of dead bodies; they have disappeared entirely from the everyday world. Sometimes you see a fox lying dead at the roadside, knocked down by a car, but most of us have never set eyes on a human corpse.

  When Leinen entered the Forensic Institute, Dr Reimers, the senior public prosecutor, and two police officers from the murder squad were already waiting for the head of Forensic Medicine, Professor Wagenstett. It was unusual for a defending lawyer to attend an autopsy, but Leinen wanted to know everything about the case.

  The autopsy table was 2.5 metres long and 85 centimetres wide. It rested on a broad central pedestal, with two power points in the side for the electric saws and drills, a water tap that you could turn on and off with your knee, and a shower handset. The sink was set into the table. It was a modern model with a surface that could be electrically raised or lowered. ‘Almost silent,’ Wagenstett had said when the table was delivered six months earlier, happy as a boy with a new toy. Below the perforated surface – which was in three parts to allow easy cleaning – a receptacle carried blood and other residues down a slight slope to a removable filter. The fume extractor above the table looked like an outsize kitchen-cooker hood.

  When Leinen saw the body he felt sick. The dead man was naked. Under the harsh white light, the hair on his chest and around his genitals looked thick, his nipples and fingernails were dark, every contrast was emphasized. Half the dead man’s face was torn away, with muscle fibre and bone exposed. The remaining eye was open, torn and milky. Like the eye of a fish, thought Leinen.

  Wagenstett began the autopsy. Using his thumbs, he pressed the livor mortis marks on the torso and legs. His assistant, a sturdy female medical student with her hair pinned up, bent over the body with him.

  ‘The marks are dark purple,’ Wagenstett pronounced. ‘The body was not lying out of doors. That agrees with the police report.’ He turned to his assistant. ‘Look, the marks give way only slightly under strong pressure; they won’t go back to their previous state within the next few seconds. Try it for yourself.’

  She tried it.

  ‘What do you conclude from that?’ asked Wagenstett.

  ‘The man has been dead more than six hours and less than thirty-six hours.’

  ‘Correct.’ Wagenstett straightened up. He was very much the teacher again. ‘Define those marks, will you?’

  ‘Livor mortis marks show when the force of gravity causes blood to settle inside the vessels.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Good.’

  It went on like this for about two hours. Wagenstett dictated into a small microphone hanging above the table. Rigor mortis of the muscles had set in almost entirely. No putrefaction yet. Wagenstett picked up the report by the doctor who had attended the scene of the crime, read the data he gave on body temperature and the temperature outside the body, and nodded. Then he described the dead man: head, hair (length, height of hairline above the forehead), face, nasal structure and nostrils (‘shattered, blood and clear fluid drained away, tracks running to both ears, conspicuous on the right’), the eyes (‘left eye destroyed, not present, right eye partially present, conjunctiva pale’), the mouth cavity (‘containing reddish fluid’). Wagenstett spoke quietly and with concentration. The outward appearance of the corpse, he told his assistant, was their first contact with the dead man. One must proceed carefully, slowly and respectfully. Examine the body from top to bottom, systematically, not jumping back and forth between striking features. ‘The man is d
ead,’ said Wagenstett, ‘so take your time.’ He treated the body with dignity; jokes were banned at the autopsy table.

  After the outer appearance of the corpse came the internal examination. Leinen had to lean against the tiled wall; his legs felt weak. Wagenstett had turned the heavy body over and was dissecting the back. With a scalpel, he cut down from the nape of the neck to the sacrum and then over both buttocks, so that his incision was Y-shaped. He separated the tissues layer by layer, removing the muscles of the back, turning the soft tissue and the left shoulder blade to one side. Leinen closed his eyes, but the smell was still there. He wanted to leave, but he was unable to move.