Private Berlin (Private 5)

“Maybe later,” Doruk said. “Did you know your stepfather maintains that your mother was divorcing him?”

“He’s lying,” Rudy Krüger said immediately, and then hesitated. “I don’t know why, but he’s lying. That was the irony. She was staying with him, selling out for the money.”

Katharina Doruk shook her head. “According to him, your mother had laid down the line. Despite the fact that he’d pledged to turn his pursuits to philanthropy, she’d decided to leave with her dignity intact. That’s the irony. If she’d done it, you were the one who would have been screwed, Rudy.”

CHAPTER 111

RUDY KRÜGER’S LIPS thinned. “What the fuck you talking about?”

“Your mother’s prenuptial agreement,” Doruk said. “Before he left Kripo headquarters I asked Hermann if you were mentioned in the agreement. Know what he told me?”

The billionaire’s stepson shrugged.

“He said the deal worked like this,” Doruk said. “If your mother stayed married to Hermann until his death, she would inherit his entire fortune, which meant you would eventually inherit a fortune.”

“I don’t care about money,” he said flatly. “And so what?”

“It also stated that if your mother divorced Hermann, she would get only ten million.”

“I told you that,” Rudy Krüger replied.

“You did,” Doruk said. “But what’s interesting is that the third provision in the agreement states that if Agnes died first in marriage, her husband would provide you, Rudy, with a full tenth share of his fortune, which as of the close of trading today was worth close to four hundred million euros.”

He stared at her. “If you say so. I told you I don’t care about money. I’ll probably give it to this place. Make sure it survives.”

“Maybe some of it,” Doruk replied. “But the rest, I think, you’ll use for your own gain and leisure.”

He laughed bitterly at her. “Fuck you. Who are you? You don’t know me. What are you trying to say, that I killed my mother? I wasn’t anywhere near my mother when she was shot. I was here at a rally for Tacheles.”

“I know,” Katharina Doruk said. “We checked.”

“There you go, then,” he shot back. “So why don’t you take your vicious innuendo and get the hell out of here.”

Katharina ignored him, looking instead at his girlfriend and saying, “But you know, Tanya, very few people seem to remember you being at the rally.”

“Me? I was there,” she said indignantly. “Lots of people saw me.”

“Name one,” Doruk said.

“Rude,” she said.

“Convenient.”

“There were others,” she protested.

Doruk shook her head. “No. You left the rally shortly after it began and went to Wilmersdorf. You knew Agnes was going out to lunch because Rudy told you she was going to lunch with her friend Ingrid Dahl at Restaurant Quarré. You knew the route she’d likely take leaving. You waited and you shot her.”

“You have no proof of that,” Tanya said, her voice breaking toward a whine.

“We will,” Doruk said. “Or rather Kripo will. They’re searching Rudy’s studio right now.”

“What?” Rudy Krüger yelled, pulling away from his girlfriend.

For a moment, Tanya looked too stunned to move. But then she tried to take off. Doruk was too quick. She grabbed Tanya and shoved her arm up behind her back.

“I had no idea!” Rudy Krüger was shouting at Doruk. “If she did this, she did it on her own. Stupid, crazy bitch!”

At that Tanya went berserk and started spitting words at him. “What? This was your idea! You said no one would ever suspect me! This was your idea! You said we could do good with that money. We could save Tacheles, and other places, and live a righteous life.”