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Private Berlin (Private 5)

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“I was heading to the office.”

“I found out that Rudy Krüger lives and works in Tacheles. It might be a nice time for a chat. I hear early is always good when you’re dealing with artists and anarchists.”

Mattie had her sights set on Chris’s past, but she could see the value in talking to the billionaire’s son.

“When?”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Mattie headed toward the underground at Rosenthaler Platz. It was a cool, blustery day, with dark puffy clouds racing across a deep-blue sky, and Mattie found herself wondering if life was nothing more than that, a cloud racing across a blue sky, and then, simply, gone on the wind.

That thought consumed her until she entered the underground station and noticed the Berliner Zeitung and Berliner Morgenpost newspaper headlines at one of the kiosks. She snapped up both, paid, and read the articles about the slaughterhouse on the train to Oranienburger Strasse.

Both stories noted the explosion, the fact that police vehicles had been seen in the area the day before, and the rumor that High Commissar Hans Dietrich had been working the case. Federal agent Risi Baumgarten was the only official quoted in either story, however, and she had revealed very little, refusing to say what police had been doing inside the old abattoir before it blew up.

The Morgenpost article went further, noting that the GDR government built the slaughterhouse as an auxiliary to East Berlin’s main stockyard and slaughterhouse in the late 1950s. As the communist economy slowly crumbled the building had been used less often, and then abandoned. It had stood that way until yesterday’s blast.

“That place was never fully abandoned,” Mattie muttered to herself as she got off the underground train. “Someone knew about that subbasement and that fake drain going way, way back.”

CHAPTER 39

TACHELES WAS THE epitome of cool in Berlin, a bullet-ridden, bomb-scarred, and graffiti-clad building in Mitte that the East Germans never tore down after Hitler’s war.

When the wall fell, squatters moved in to the former department store on Oranienburger Strasse and formed an artists’ collective. Twenty years later, more than one hundred artists lived and worked in the building and on the grounds, which over the years had evolved to include studios, an avant-garde cinema, restaurants, a squatters’ village, a giant sculpture garden, and an outdoor performance area and stage.

It was eight fif

teen in the morning, but the lower building was nearly dead quiet. They climbed upstairs. Rudy Krüger’s rented squat was on the third floor. Katharina’s smartphone dinged. She looked at it.

“Interesting,” she said. “Olle Larsson, the Swedish financier, just announced that he’s taken a five percent interest in Krüger Industries.”

“Which means what?” Mattie asked.

“Possible target of a take-over bid, and according to this report, there’s been no comment by Krüger—who is said to be out of the country on business.”

“I bet a hostile takeover would put a lot of pressure on Hermann.”

“Keep him away from his women, certainly,” Katharina said.

“Maybe enough to make him homicidal?”

“I don’t know. Let’s ask.”

They found the door to Rudy Krüger’s studio. Electronic music played inside. Katharina pounded on the door.

“I’m working!” Rudy Krüger yelled back immediately.

Katharina identified herself and a moment later the music lowered and the door opened on a chain. The billionaire’s stepson wore a white coverall spattered in black and blue paint. “I’m busy. I’ve got an exhibition opening in three days, and a meeting to be at in an hour.”

“We just want to talk to you about your stepfather, the alleged murderer,” Mattie said.

He gave them a calculating stare and then opened the door.

They entered a loft area with north light beaming into a large, high-ceilinged studio. There were canvases up on easels and others stacked against the walls. They were all abstracts in blues and blacks and featured the words Rude, Rot, and Riot splashed somewhere in brilliant yellows or reds.

“Selling any?” Katharina asked.

Rudy looked at her contemptuously. “Buying and selling have little to do with art. I’m more about the doing than the marketing.”



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