“Do you remember the Nuremberg trials, Carl?”
He nodded. It wasn’t hard to recall the black-and-white images of those bastards from the Second World War sitting in rows wearing Bakelite headphones while listening to accusations about their atrocious war crimes. G?ring, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Frank, Streicher, and all the others waiting for the gallows. There had never been a Christmas at his aunt Abelone’s house in Brovst when he had not looked at photos of the hauntingly displayed bodies in a history book, shuddering in horror. Strangely enough, despite the theme of the book, he had nothing but happy memories of a bygone childhood when he thought of those Christmases.
“There were also many smaller war tribunals like that around the world after the war, but I’m sure you know that?”
Carl looked at the GPS. Straight ahead for a few kilometers.
“Yes, they had them wherever there had been war crimes. The Balkans, Japan, Poland, France, and Denmark too. But why do you bring it up, Assad?”
“Because Fritzl Zimmermann was one of the people the Polish wanted executed.”
Carl raised his eyebrows and briefly looked at Assad. “Rigmor Zimmermann’s husband?”
“Exactly!”
“What had he done?”
“They couldn’t prove anything because apparently he was one of the people who managed to erase the traces of their atrocities. No survivors. Full stop.”
“They couldn’t prove what, Assad?”
“That Fritzl Zimmermann was actually Sturmbannführer Bernhard Krause, who was directly involved in executing captured Allied soldiers in France and later on civilians in Poland and Romania. I’ve read that they had convincing evidence against him in the form of photos and witness statements.” He took his feet down from the dashboard and rummaged around in the briefcase on the floor.
“I don’t understand. Witness statements? Didn’t you just say he’d erased all traces and that there were no survivors to document his involvement?”
“Yeah, the main witnesses were two Totenkopf officers, but Fritzl Zimmermann’s defense lawyer managed to convince the judges that their statements were unreliable because they wanted to pin their own war crimes on someone else, and therefore the case was dismissed. The other two were hanged for their crimes in 1946.”
“And what about the photographs that pointed to Fritzl Zimmermann?”
“I’ve seen a couple of them, but I’ll spare you for now, Carl. The executions were extremely brutal, but the defense lawyer managed to prove that some of them had been doctored and that the man they showed wasn’t Zimmermann. So he was acquitted.”
“Acquitted just like that?”
“Yes. And later a death certificate was found stating that Sturmbannführer Bernhard Krause had died from diphtheria on February 27th, 1953, in a POW camp in Sverdlovsk in the Urals.”
“And meanwhile Fritzl had reinvented himself as a shoe retailer?”
“Yes, he started off small in Kiel and then worked his way up with a few shops in Southern Jutland before setting up business in R?dovre, west of Copenhagen.”
“And where is all this information coming from, Assad? You’ve not had much time to research.”
“I know someone with good contacts at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Austria.”
“But don’t they only hold information about crimes committed against Jews?”
“Yes, many of Bernhard Krause’s victims were Jews. They kept a record of the whole case, and at the center they’re convinced about Fritzl Zimmermann’s guilt and identity.”
“Was he still wanted when he was living and working in Denmark?”
“It doesn’t say anything specific in the paperwork, but my friend was under the impression that ‘someone’”—he made quotation marks with his fingers in the air—“had broken into his villa twice to look for evidence of his involvement. When they didn’t find anything, the case was shelved.”
“A break-in in R?dovre?”
“Don’t underestimate the Israelis. Maybe you remember that they kidnapped Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him back for trial in Israel?”
Carl nodded. Red light in front of him and then a right turn.
“And what can we use all this information for, Assad?” he said, putting the car in neutral.
“Among the photos that were mailed to me was this one, Carl. You’ll understand when you see it.”
He handed Carl a print so he could see it up close.
It was an unusually clear photo showing a black-clad officer seen from behind. Both his hands were clenching a short, blunt club, and his arms were raised above his shoulders, ready to smash the club into the back of the head of a poor tied-up victim standing in front of him.
On the ground to the right of the man lay three bodies with their heads smashed in. To the left of the victim stood another two bound men awaiting their fate.
“Fuck,” whispered Carl. He swallowed a couple of times and pushed the photo away. There had been a time when people had thought that this kind of evil could never happen again, but all it did was remind him of the reality in large parts of the world today. How could this be allowed to happen over and over again?
“What are you thinking, Assad?”
“That Stephanie Gundersen and Rigmor Zimmermann were murdered in exactly this way. What more is there to say? Is it a coincidence? I don’t think so.” He pointed at the traffic light. “It’s green, Carl.”
Carl looked up. All of a sudden a Danish provincial town like this seemed so immensely distant from everything.
“But Stephanie Gundersen was murdered in 2004, and by that time Fritzl Zimmermann was eighty-six, very weak, and wheelchair bound, so he can’t possibly have been the perpetrator,” he thought out loud. “Not to mention the possibility of him killing his wife given that she died more than ten years after him.”
“I’m just saying that I think there’s a connection. Maybe Marcus is right.”
Carl nodded. It was an impressive amount of information to have found in such a short time. And thinking about it, Assad had delivered the whole torrent without so much as making one of his usual linguistic blunders. It was remarkable how well-spoken he suddenly was.
He looked at Assad, who was staring pensively at the houses they drove past. Full of wisdom.
Who the hell are you, Assad? he thought, turning right.
—
The number from which the anonymous call to Department Q had been made was registered to an address in one of the more humble neighborhoods in the vicinity of the steel plant. A quick glance over the state of the house and the mess around it was enough to invoke Carl’s prejudice.
“Do you think he collects scrap metal?” asked Assad. Carl nodded. What was it about all these defunct lawn mowers, bicycles, car wrecks, and other rusty vehicles that brought out the hoarder and protective instincts in certain types of men?