Читать книгу 155 - Hubertus Godeysen - Страница 10

Early on the morning of November 11, 2000, Eva Danninger-Soriat leaves her house in the Salzburg suburb of Aigen. She gets in her car and steers it along the Salzach River into the center of the regional capital. The morning sun is shining; it hits her rearview mirror, blinding her so she has to adjust it. The sky is blue. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful, clear day; a great day for hiking or skiing. Despite it being a Saturday, she’s on her way to the regional court in the Nonntal section of town for on-call duty as a public prosecutor. The courthouse, built in 1909, is south of the old town on Rudolfsplatz. She pulls into the staff parking lot, goes through the main entrance, says hello to the porter, and makes her way into the public prosecutors’ offices.

The minute she steps into her office, she’s called upon to act. The police are already waiting and need her support for investigations, then there are urgent decisions to make.

Danninger-Soriat has never regretted becoming a lawyer and public prosecutor. Her first spectacular case was the Lucona Affair, which landed on her desk in 1983. She took an early and decisive approach to investigating a case of suspected murder against Udo Proksch, owner of the famous Demel pastry shop, whose attempt to defraud an insurance company of millions by sinking the cargo ship Lucona and pretending it was carrying uranium-mining equipment resulted in the death of six members of the ship’s crew.

It was said in Vienna that Proksch was protected by influential and prominent members of "Club 45" —politicians, ministers, and high-ranking bureaucrats— so it stood to reason that the charge was filed in "the provinces." That ensured that even Vienna was unable to dismiss Eva Danninger-Soriat’s well-founded case, and Proksch’s connections in the legendary "Club 45" could no longer help him: the darling of Viennese society was found guilty of six counts of murder in 1992.

But Eva Danninger-Soriat’s thoughts are now in the present. Decisively, she takes the first file from the stack she’s planning to work on today. She opens it and concentrates fully on the case before her.