The Grave of Truth (29 page)

The description of the two Swiss, Kesler and Franconi, did not fit any pair of individuals. The homosexuals were ruled out as soon as he saw them. An elderly businessman and a teenage pimp with a record of soliciting—the man's embarrassment was pitiful when he was questioned—and two antique dealers, both so effeminate and slight that from behind they could have passed as women. Neither could possibly have thrown Max Steiner off his feet. But there were five men of medium height with blond hair, and another three whose colouring didn't fit but whose age and physique did. Every one of them had identification which at first check seemed genuine. Of the eight suspects, Holler mentally reserved three. There was a Bavarian musician, who had picked up an elderly woman staying at the hotel and, according to the woman herself, had not gone to bed with her as he had indicated. He had sat up talking and suddenly excused himself. There was a young engineer from Basle who had booked in for the night en route to Prague. His papers were in order, but it seemed an expensive choice for a man of his age for one night, and there was something ill-disposed about him which alerted Holler. The last was the textile dealer from Milan who had gone to sleep in the TV lounge. His story checked out easily. His hotel confirmed that he was staying there; the Milan address was authenticated by a telephone call, and his passport was in order. What worried Holler was his eagerness to help. All the other suspects had complained in varying degrees; some became very abusive. But the fair Italian was complaisant about being kept in the hotel and investigated; he was a shade too co-operative, and Holler didn't equate that with the Italian temperament. He thanked everyone and dismissed them, promising to release them from the hotel as soon as possible, and when they had gone he began to think and chain-smoke.

The killer had not got out of the hotel. The time factor made it impossible for anyone to have left because the main exit in the front, the service exits and the fire escapes were guarded by his men, and as the alarm was raised all the doors were locked. This time it was one killer, not two, and from Max Steiner's vague impression it could be the younger and smaller of the two men who had killed Schmidt in Berchtesgaden and stayed in the
pension
together at the time Father Grunwald was attacked. And he was there, in the hotel, hidden behind a false identity and a well-documented background which would take more than a few days to break down. Holler had nothing on which to arrest any of them; unless he could find some piece of evidence or identification he would have to let them go in the next few hours. The man he was hunting would never be found again once he left the Kaiserhof and slipped into the Munich streets.

It was possible that a new assassin had been employed and the others withdrawn, since the Reverend Mother had seen one of them at close quarters. But Holler didn't think so; if his instinct was right and it was one of the original pair who had begun the chain of murders with the killing of Sigmund Walther then the proprietress of the
pension
would certainly be able to point him out. An identity parade could be held in the hotel, with Minna and Max Steiner to reinforce the principal witness. If she were unable to see one of her clients in the line-up then he would have to release the suspects.

He looked the number up in the telephone directory and dialled. It was very early in the morning and he had to wait some minutes before it was answered. The daughter took the call; no, her mother was not at home. Yes, she supposed she could come to an identity parade, but she didn't think she'd be much help. She sounded rather breathless, as if she had been running to catch the telephone before it stopped ringing. Really, she couldn't remember all that much about the Swiss gentlemen. They had a lot of guests staying a few nights and already she wasn't too sure what either of them had looked like. She didn't remember saying one of them had fair hair.… No, it didn't come back to her at all.… Holler put the telephone down. She wasn't going to get involved; he knew the type of person who regarded any contact with the police as a social stigma. If she or her mother did recognize the younger of the two men they wouldn't say so. Then he paused, the lighter aflame, the cigarette in his lips waiting to be lit. He made a second call.

At the other end of the telephone line the woman replaced the receiver with shaking hands. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she whimpered as Kesler brought the gun to her breast. ‘I didn't tell, I didn't.…' He nodded at her encouragingly and shot her through the heart. Her mother lay dead in her bed upstairs. He looked at her as her body slid down, buckling from the knees, and collapsed in a ragdoll heap at his feet. ‘You didn't,' he said softly, ‘and you're not going to now.' He left her there and slipped out of the back entrance into the street.

When Franconi didn't contact him Kesler knew that the plan had gone wrong. He walked through the empty streets in the pre-dawn and passed the entrance to the Kaiserhof Hotel. He walked on past the police cars parked outside and closed his eyes against a rush of tears. Maurice had been caught. He didn't even think of his own safety. His lover wouldn't give him away; he didn't consider that as a risk. But if Maurice were cornered and alive then he, Kesler, had to protect him as much as he could. He caught an early bus, filled with workers on the first shift, and hurried to the
pension
where they had stayed before.

He got in through the rear door; he knew where the mother and daughter's bedrooms were; there were only ten bedrooms in the place. He shot the older woman as she slept, and caught the younger on her way down to answer the telephone. Nobody else would recognize Maurice. He went back to his small boarding house, let himself in and sat on the bed, his shoulders sagging, his head cradled in his hands. He wept for the man he loved, then he packed his clothes and left some Deutschmarks on the dressing table. He caught the first train out of the city travelling to Salzburg. From there he would fly to Zurich and then on to Geneva.

He bought a newspaper at the station and scanned it, sick with anxiety, and suddenly he began to hope. There had been an attempted assault on a woman staying at the Kaiserhof. No names were being issued for the time and a number of suspects were being questioned by the police. He hadn't got away, but he hadn't been caught outright. Maurice always kept his head; hope surged in him. As his plane took off and thrust upwards through the brilliant sky, Kesler said a prayer to the patroness of his youth in Poland, the Miraculous Virgin of Cracow, for Maurice Franconi's safe return to him. He would never have abjured his atheism and prayed for himself.

Everyone was informed of the identity parade; the hotel staff and the twelve men selected for the initial investigation, were politely asked to wait in the closed cocktail bar. Coffee and sandwiches were served, and Holler's chief subordinate apologized for the delay, and assured them that it was merely a routine. But the hotel remained closed, and nobody was allowed to leave. It was nearly lunchtime when Minna and Max Steiner saw Holler again. He had decided to hold the parade in the main hall, where his witnesses could watch from the lounge. ‘I'm afraid it'll be a waste of time,' Max said to him. ‘I didn't see anything but a shape in that half darkness. Minna saw nothing at all, she just woke up with the crash when I fell.'

‘I know that,' Holler nodded. He knew that Steiner resented Minna being brought into the identification; he had tried to resist the suggestion, but Holler insisted. Holler sympathized with Max Steiner; he didn't want her to be upset by trying to pick out the man who had attempted to kill her. Holler had listened, and apologized, but Frau Walther was needed; someone would come and bring them both down to the lounge. Privately he thought that Minna Walther was not nearly as fragile as Max Steiner thought.

When they came downstairs Max had his arm round her, and Holler thought again: He's in love and he's a fool. She doesn't need protecting: she's not afraid of anything.…

‘You stand here, please.' He positioned them in the archway leading to the lounge. They could be seen from the main hall.

In the cocktail bar Maurice Franconi tried to eat his sandwiches. The strain was affecting his stomach, which was revolted by food. He was glad of the coffee. He didn't join in the complaints of the others; he and the Swiss engineer kept themselves apart. The Swiss was taciturn, and to Franconi he seemed very nervous.

‘What's the good of locking us up here?' somebody demanded loudly. ‘It happened in the dark, didn't it? That's what I understood—so how could anyone be identified?'

‘It's a police trick,' someone else answered, ‘just to keep us here. I'm going to take this up with my lawyer when I go home. It's disgraceful; I've missed an important business meeting this morning.'

Franconi listened and said nothing. Who could they have found, apart from the woman who was asleep and the man he had flung aside in a dark room—it was all nonsense, just as that idiot had said, moaning about a business meeting—if only he could have got word to Kesler. He must know it had all gone wrong and be frantic with worry. Franconi wondered what Kesler would do. The sensible thing was to get out as fast as he could and go to ground in Switzerland. That was what he, Maurice, would have done, and yet part of him, which was afraid, hoped that perhaps Kesler was still in Munich.… He reproached himself for letting his imagination take a morbid trend; nobody could identify him, and the police would have to let them all go for lack of evidence.

They'd be asked to stay in the city for the next twenty-four hours, and they'd all give that assurance, before they started telephoning lawyers and making furious complaints. He'd be out of Munich within an hour of walking through the hotel doors. They couldn't prove anything against him, or the parade wouldn't have been necessary. He urged himself to keep calm and appear confident. It was funny how guilty some of the men were looking; Kesler always said most human beings had something to hide.…

Holler's assistant appeared at the door of the cocktail bar. He opened it and stood aside. ‘So sorry to have kept you waiting, gentlemen. Come through this way, and line up over there. That's right. Thank you.'

Franconi saw them standing inside the archway; the tall blonde woman and the journalist. His heartbeat steadied. Just those two, as he'd expected. Neither of them had seen anything they could identify. He took his place in the lineup.

Holler had come to stand beside Max. ‘Do you see the man who attacked you last night?'

‘No,' Max said. ‘It could have been any of them.'

Holler turned to Minna. She shook her head. Franconi had been watching them, and he gave a slight smile.

‘That's what I was afraid of,' Heinrich Holler said. ‘It was just too dark. But we have one more witness. Let's see what she thinks—' He turned and snapped his fingers. The little black and white terrier bitch was slipped free of her lead. She had been travelling on a special charter flight from Holler's home in West Berlin. Franconi stood rigid as the little dog scampered through into the main hall. His nerves were screaming as the terrier trotted forward and then stopped, her head cocked to one side, her bright eyes like buttons. He hadn't killed her because she'd looked at him and licked his hand. Suddenly she saw him, and she bounded forward with a happy bark of recognition and leapt round his legs, wagging her tail in delight and trying to jump up into his arms. He didn't kick her away; he just stood motionless, until Holler came towards him. He smiled at Franconi. ‘The little dog seems to know you,' he said. ‘I think I may have something else that belongs to you, too.' He brought his right hand up very quickly, and the gold pen was pointing its lethally charged tip an inch from Franconi's face. He reacted involuntarily, with the instinct for danger that had several times saved his life. He leaped backwards and shielded his face with his arm.

‘Yes,' Holler murmured, ‘it is your property. You will accompany the officers to police headquarters. The rest of you gentlemen may leave now.' He didn't see his men take Franconi. He swung round and turned his back on him.

Chapter 8

‘It sounds as if you're trying to blackmail me,' Heinrich Holler said. ‘If so, Herr Steiner, you're making a stupid mistake.'

‘I was sent here by my magazine to write an investigation of Sigmund Walther's murder. I'm living on an expense account, and doing an assignment I asked them to finance. I owe them the story. That's all I'm saying.'

‘Not quite,' Holler interposed. ‘You're suggesting that unless you and Minna see this woman for yourselves, you're going to write the story of Adolf Hitler's children for
Newsworld
. Which may or may not be desirable from my government's point of view. If that isn't blackmail, what is it?'

It was Minna who answered him. ‘It's a fair exchange,' she said. ‘If you don't mind the story being printed, then there's nothing more to say. If you want Max to give up something which could make him the best-known political journalist in Europe, then you owe him a favour in return. And you know very well what you owe me. My husband's life.'

‘Sigmund knew what he was doing,' Holler said. ‘Now you're blackmailing, Minna. I told Sigmund that he was going into something dangerous, and that I couldn't protect him. He understood the risks and accepted them. Nobody regrets his death more than I do.' He stared at her and then at Max; his expression was contemptuous. ‘What good will it do Sigmund if you see a woman for a few minutes—she'll never be interviewed or seen by anyone again.'

‘What harm is there in seeing her?' Max asked. ‘Minna has suffered a lot; you may not approve of us, Herr Holler, but you've no right to judge. I'll give up the story if you'll show us what we've been looking for. And I'll give you a sworn undertaking that I won't mention anything that could embarrass you or the West German government.'