“Lina . . .” Max raised his voice, but she simply went on talking.
“I’ll call Marita Schön at White-Collar Crimes again. She should
grill her—and Daniel Vogler, as well.”
“Lina, could you please tell me what the hell just happened in
there?” Max had stopped and now held her by the sleeve. Grudgingly,
she turned around. His face was a question mark.
“How come your fathers know each other? And how come I only
found this out now? Does Hanno know?”
She stared at him, tore herself away, and stomped off in the direc-
tion of the car. She remained stubbornly silent on the way until they stopped in front of a coffeeshop, where, as Max knew, the coffee was to her liking. He stood in line for both of them, and when he brought her latte macchiato to the little table by the window, she mumbled a quiet thank you.
Eventually she leaned back, stretched out her legs, and looked at
the street outside, where only a few people were visible since it still was raining. The tables for smokers in front of the café stood empty, as did the tables in front of the bakery on the other side of the street.
194
Dead Woods
“My father is Meinhart Steinhagen,” she said in such a soft voice
that Max thought he hadn’t heard right. She picked up the sugar dis-
penser, shook some on her foamed milk, and ate it with a spoon.
Max said nothing. For the longest time he just looked at Lina as
if he were considering notifying the psychological support team that took care of traumatized colleagues during a crisis. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Your father is the Meinhart Steinhagen?”
Lina nodded.
Every child in Hamburg knew that name. The Steinhagen family
had been part of Hamburg for generations, their ancestors had been
among those who signed the founding documents of the city, and at
times more than half of Hamburg had belonged to them. While those
times were long gone, even today many streets, squares, and buildings bore the family name. Meinhart Steinhagen was a ship owner, banker,
and merchant. He had been a senator, had received an honorary doc-
torate from the local university, and was a friend of everyone who was rich and famous in Hamburg, and beyond.
Max was speechless. He couldn’t remember the last time that had
happened to him. “But how . . . I mean your name’s Svenson, and you
aren’t married—and why have you never said anything?”
“I was an illegitimate child, and I’d be much happier if he weren’t
my father.” Her secret was out now and she had no idea what the con-
sequences would be. She had carefully arranged her entire life to keep anyone from finding out, out of fear that people would consider her
one of them. She shuddered at the thought that anyone would talk about her in the same breath as someone like Katja Ansmann. What
a disgrace for someone proud to be from Altona, the ancient working
class district, where Hamburg moneybags had for ages only dared to
venture under police protection. Having a father like that was worse than having scabies.
Max was watching her clear, measured movements and knew that
she must be boiling inside, that the calmness she projected was the
195
Maria C. Poets
concentrated quiet of a fighter before an attack. If her father—with whom she seemed to have a tense relationship, to put it mildly—was
one of Hamburg’s richest men, it explained quite a few things. Max no longer had to guess where her striking revulsion for wealth and preten-sion came from.
“Tell me about him,” Max said. There was an unusual authority
in his voice, which Lina found difficult to ignore. Maybe she also no longer wanted to be silent, since she had been silent for so long. She nevertheless took her time before answering. When she finally began to speak, her voice was calm and matter-of-fact, as if the story had nothing to do with her.
“Until I was sixteen, I thought my father had been a vacation fling
of my mother’s, some guy from London named Alistair, whose name
and address she didn’t know.” She shrugged and looked at Max for
the first time since they had sat down in the café. “At least that’s what she always told me, and that’s what’s written on my birth certificate: father unknown. I never missed my father as a child since, after all, there was Christian, my mom’s boyfriend. He was my father then and
still is today, even though I’ve always known that he wasn’t my biological father.” She looked out the window again. “When I was sixteen, I participated in