“Yes, I believe so, but I’d rather you spoke with Tanneberger or Ganz. They’re the ones leading the investigation.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be on the Carlsen case?” Markworth asked, a plaintive note in his voice, as if he sincerely could not understand why he was not. “Want me to have a word?”
“That’s your prerogative, Mr. Markworth,” Reinhardt said, equivocating, and uncomfortable discussing internal issues with an outsider. “I’m going that way,” he said. “So I wish you a pleasant evening.”
But even then, it was not over. As Markworth walked away back toward the police station, as Reinhardt made his way to the tram stop, a small voice came out of the dark.
“Hey. Bull.”
Reinhardt peered into the shadows where a wall had tumbled in on itself. “Leena?”
“Yes,” said the orphan girl. He could hardly see her. “You said to come to you if anything happened.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Someone came to the building today. Someone we hadn’t seen in a long time. Someone called Kausch. He used to live there. He used to live where Noell lived.”
“You mean Kessel?”
“No. Kausch. We’re sure. We’ve seen him before, and we don’t like him. We don’t like the look of him. Or his friends. We never did. They chased us. They caught one of the boys, once, and beat him bad.” Reinhardt stayed quiet, listening to the girl’s voice as it came low and steady out of the dark. “This Kausch, he had a word with Ochs. Him and one of his friends. They roughed him up. Scared him half to death. We listened. And we followed them when they left. They went to Plantagen Strasse, up in Wedding in the French sector. They went into a building half in ruins. We watched it for a bit. Other men went in and out. And there was a man watching the street from the rooftop. We thought you’d want to know.”
“Thank you, Leena. That was very brave of you.”
“It’s nothing. We never liked him. He reminds us of the bad old days.”
“What do you mean?”
“He should be wearing black, bull. That’s what it means.”
16
TUESDAY
Reinhardt’s phone call to Hamburg went through at nine o’clock, on the dot. He did not know how Dommes had arranged it, but there it was, a miracle of organization and determination. He sat in the exchange in a small booth with the receiver pressed to his ear, listening to the hustle and bustle of a distant office. There was a clatter, a heave of breath, and then a voice came on the line.
“This is Lassen.”
“Inspector Lassen, good morning, my name is Gregor Reinhardt. I’m a detective with Kripo in Berlin.”
“Good to speak with you. You want to talk about Haber, right?” The man had a thick Hamburg accent.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“First, may I ask you a couple of questions? To make sure I’m on the right track?”
“Fine, go ahead.”
“Thank you. Can you tell me, what was the condition of Haber’s body when you found him?”
“Pretty nasty, yes. I remember. He’d been dead about, oh, three or four days.”
“He was found in his living room?”
“Yes.”
“Did anything strike you about the way the body had been left?”
“No, not really. Not that I can remember.”
“There was an autopsy?”
“Yes. It determined death by asphyxiation. There was water poured down his throat. Whoever killed him incapacitated him first, and then the water literally drowned him.”
“Water? You’re sure?”
There was a silence on the line. “Pretty sure. He drowned. At least that was the coroner’s findings.”
“How was he incapacitated?”
“A severe blow to the sternum, as I recall. And he was tied down. The autopsy was a bit of a mess, as the body was pretty far gone when we found it.”
“Did anyone ever come forward as a witness?”
“No. Never. He lived alone, worked in a pharmacy. Kept himself to himself, mostly. I remember, he had a dog. He was often seen walking it. It was the dog barking that led to the body being found.”
“Did you ever arrest anyone, or suspect someone?”
“No. No one. The case was a complete mystery. No evidence at the crime scene. No suspicious individuals. No threats. No problems at work. No money problems. Nothing. No leads at all.”
“What about his service history?”
“What about it?”
“Haber was former air force.”
“Yes. He was a medical doctor.”
“Any leads there?”
There was a silence on the line. “No,” Lassen said, finally. “I can’t say we followed up with that.”
“Do you know where he served?”
“I don’t. Look, your turn. What’s going on?”
“I’ve found two bodies in Berlin. They were killed in similar ways to Haber.”
“Jesus. Go on. What links them?”
“Both bodies showed signs of having been severely beaten. Incapacitating blows to the sternum. Ligature marks indicating they had been tied down. Both men were former air force.”
“Jesus,” Lassen said, again.
“There’s a slight difference, though. One of my victims drowned, like Haber. The other had sand forced down his throat.” Reinhardt was sure of Noell, although Endres had not yet confirmed it on Zuleger.
“Sand? Jesus.”
“Lassen, I’m following up several leads here, but one of them has to be the air-force connection. Have you something to write with? The first victim’s name was Andreas Noell. The second was Conrad Zuleger.” He spelled both names out. “I think Noell served in a squadron called IV./JG56. Got that? IV./JG56.” He held Zuleger’s Wehrpass open with his fingers. “Zuleger served in the same squadron until he was transferred to another one . . .” He checked the booklet. “In April 1943.”
“Where to?”
“Err . . . III./NJG64. Sorry, I don’t know what it means.”
“Neither do I, if it helps.”
Reinhardt turned the Wehrpass in his hands. Every able-bodied man had been given one on demobilization and was required to keep it until retirement. Reinhardt had one himself. It contained a man’s service history, but he stared at it with sudden suspicion, remembering the evidence that had been hidden in plain sight in the soldbuchs of the soldiers whose murders he had investigated in Sarajevo. What secrets might this Wehrpass hold that he just could not see, that might be staring him in the face . . . ?
“Reinhardt? You still there?”
“Yes. Sorry. Did you find a Wehrpass at Haber’s residence? Yes? Perhaps you could have a look at it for the same entries. One last thing. Perhaps you could reopen your inquiries into Haber’s service history. If all three of them were in the same squadron, and at the same time, we might have a link. Or at least a way to understand what’s happening.”
“Consider it done, Reinhardt.” Lassen’s voice had a ring of enthusiasm to it. “I shall call you. Say at the same time, in two days?”
“Thank you, Lassen. I look forward to it.”
They said their good-byes and Reinhardt hung up the phone with a warm feeling of satisfaction in the pit of his belly. The satisfaction lasted as long as it took him to walk up to the squad room to pick up his hat and coat. Ganz and Weber were both waiting by his desk, the younger detective’s face dark with some suppressed anger.
“Reinhardt,” Ganz said peremptorily. “You’re going to Zuleger’s workplace?” Reinhardt nodded cautiously. “Good. You’ll take Weber with you.”
“Fine.”
Both Ganz and Weber looked taken aback at Reinhardt’s acquiescence. But really, Reinhardt thought to himself, what was he going to do?
Ganz frowned, as if he had some explaining to do.
“You and I may have our differences, Reinhardt, but you are a good detective. Maybe,” he said, a flat glower thrown at Weber, “you’ll be able to teach this one some of your better habits. Such as not losing track of your prime suspect in a murder. Or nearly starting a riot in a police station. Or losing your star witness.”
“You lost the woman?” Reinhardt snapped. Weber went red, and even Ganz had the grace to look sheepish momentarily. “After what happened here, you didn’t bother to watch over her?”
“What’s done is done, Reinhardt,” Ganz snapped.
“And you’ve lost your main suspect? Stresemann?”
“Enough, Reinhardt.”
“He’s probably killed her, you know.”
“I said enough, Reinhardt. Weber’s off the Carlsen inquiry, until further notice. He’ll work with you.”
“So this is a punishment detail, is it? Fine, whatever you want,” said Reinhardt, short of temper and time, but already regretting his waspish remark. It would do him no good, but the warm glow that had followed his call to Hamburg was gone. “I’m going now,” he said to Weber. “Get your things.”
“And if there’s two of us,” he said to Ganz, “how about a car? It’s a long way.”
Ganz just looked at him, turned away, but then he paused. “Reinhardt, have you spoken to Markworth?”
“Last night. I bumped into him on the way out of here,” he said shortly, not wanting to get into the specifics of what had happened.
“He ask you about the Carlsen investigation?”
“I’ll spare you the time, Ganz,” Reinhardt said. “He was surprised I wasn’t on it, and asked if I wanted to be.”
Both Ganz and Weber stood still, looking at him. “And?” Ganz prompted.
“I told him to talk to you.” Reinhardt hesitated. “Why?”
“Tanneberger’s been asked why you’re not working the case.”
“By whom?”
“By Bliemeister, and by Margraff. So? Do you want to be on your case, or on Carlsen’s?”
“You still seem to think they’re different, Ganz,” was all Reinhardt said as he headed out. Weber followed him after a moment, and a terse nod from Ganz.
Mercifully, the trains seemed to be working that morning, and they caught an S-bahn from Potsdam Station heading to Charlottenburg-Nord, in the west of the city. The trains were old stock, literally rolled out of retirement. The Soviets had taken advantage of their unrivaled mastery of Berlin in the two months before the Western Allies arrived to uproot miles of track and send it, and every train they could find, east as reparations, and the Allies had worked hard to put the network back together, pulling old trains out from the dust of their hangars. The two of them stood pressed close by passengers, shoulders shoved together, but worlds apart. Reinhardt looked out the windows at the roll of the city, the train sometimes clanking high across streets on iron bridges over the eviscerated remains of buildings, sometimes deep down in slab-sided cuttings in the city, with walls of scarred brick and stone looming up above it. At times like that, Reinhardt could only picture the train as a rat, scurrying along below the notice of the masters of the house.
They rode the train out into a sprawling area of industrial workshops and factories, clattering past the leaden flow of the Spree, past the Westhafen docks, past Plötzensee prison. Beneath a low, white sky they walked down roads and past factories where the bomb damage was heavy, but not quite as bad as that in the center. Most of the factories were shut, it seemed, and the air was still as they headed to the address of Zuleger’s workplace, not far from Siemensstadt borough and its Weimar-era workers’ housing.
“Turns out you were right,” Weber said, breaking the silence.
“About what?”
“About the prostitute being a camp survivor. We talked to a friend of hers.”
“When did she disappear?”
“Last night. After we dropped her off home. Stresemann, he was also . . .” Weber paused, his lips tight as he looked at the ground. “He was a camp guard. Somewhere called Sachsenhausen. We found that out this morning, as well.”
“Been a busy morning. How did you find that out?”
“When we got to his place, we found all kinds of stuff. Including his SS pay book. And . . . other things.”
“But not him?” Reinhardt shook his head, simultaneously frustrated and uncaring, and not liking the way that made him feel.
“Don’t be getting all high and mighty on me, Reinhardt,” Weber snarled. The cold did nothing for him, starring his face with blotches of red against the pale of his skin.
Reinhardt ignored him, stopping outside a big iron gate. There was a sign outside, VOLLMER ALTMETTAL in big black letters. The factory was alive and well, judging from the noise of machinery and the heavy clangs of metal they could hear from out on the street. The gate was open, leading into a long, narrow courtyard that fronted a stained and dirty expanse of dark redbrick wall, pierced with tall windows of glass so filthy and old it had to be all but opaque. There was a small guard post just inside the gate, with an elderly man sitting inside reading a newspaper. His mouth fell open at the sight of their police warrant discs and request to see the owner. He hopped out of his little shack and led them at an anxious pace across the courtyard and into the building, eventually handing them over to a secretary in a starched white shirt sitting behind a vast expanse of desk.
“Inspectors Reinhardt and Weber, Berlin Kripo,” Reinhardt introduced them. “We’d like to see the director or owner about one of his employees, please. A Conrad Zuleger. I’m afraid he’s been murdered.”
The woman blinked her eyes very quickly at the news, but she came quickly to her feet. “Conrad Zuleger, you said? One moment, please, let me speak with the owner.” She glided away, knocking softly on a big door of dark, varnished wood, then slipping inside.
“Weber, listen carefully,” Reinhardt said, turning swiftly to face the younger detective. “You leave the questioning to me. Ganz put you with me to clip your wings, for sure, but this needn’t be the punishment he wants it to be, or you think it is. Just, please, don’t mess things up for me, all right?”
“What’re you afraid of, Reinhardt?”
Reinhardt sighed. “That’s what’s called a leading question, Weber. I’m afraid of a lot of things, a lot of which you don’t want to hear. So don’t ask a question if you’ve not got a pretty good idea of the answer, or are ready for it to be an answer you don’t like.” He heard voices from within the office, and pushed on, quickly. “Frankly, you’re known to be rather free with your fists and your tongue.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You left your calling card on the barman’s face. You remember? The bar where Carlsen was supposedly last seen.” Weber flushed. “Fists and lip, Weber. There’s a time and place for them. And neither will get you very far, especially not here, so you leave them out and leave things to me.”
“Fine, Reinhardt,” sighed Weber, his face twisting, perhaps attempting something of a withering put-down. Reinhardt blinked at him, for a moment recalling the way Friedrich, his son, would look when Reinhardt tried to speak sense or reason to him. The feeling was startling, disconcerting, even, interrupted by the secretary coming back out.
“Mr. von Vollmer will see you now, gentlemen.”
17
The owner’s office was long, quite well lit, the floor covered in a smooth expanse of carpet. It was not opulent, but the windows were all intact and clear, the furnishings were of good quality, heavy wood and rich leather, and a chandelier of frosted white glass hung low over a varnished conference table. The walls were bare of ornamentation, but a sideboard behind the owner’s chair was covered in a variety of photos, memorabilia, and plaques, including what looked like a photo of the manager himself in uniform.
The
owner was already standing to the side of his desk, a tall man, well-dressed in a three-piece suit of dark wool and with his iron-gray hair brushed straight back from his forehead. A monocle hung from his neck, and a chain for a fob watch glittered across the slight swell of his stomach. Reinhardt pegged him immediately for some kind of aristocrat, a Prussian Junker, one of those eastern landowners that had supposedly been the backbone of Germany from time immemorial. As if attuned to it, he felt Weber stiffening beside him as if he, too, could feel it, as if any number of class or historical grievances had come churning up inside him.
“Gentlemen, good morning. I am Claus von Vollmer, the owner of this factory. I understand you have some news about an employee of mine?”
“I am Inspector Reinhardt, this is Inspector Weber. That is correct. One of your employees, a Mr. Conrad Zuleger, was found yesterday. He had been murdered.”
“I am very sorry to hear it,” replied von Vollmer, nodding. “I knew Mr. Zuleger. Not that well, so I have sent my secretary for his personnel file, and have asked Mr. Bochmann, my managing director, to join us as well.” Reinhardt was right. The man was a Junker, from his eastern accent, to his tone of voice. Haughty, somewhat distant, proper with his courtesies to within an inch of what social decorum moved him.
Reinhardt and Weber were offered seats in front of von Vollmer’s desk, where they sat rather like students awaiting the pleasure of a headmaster. Von Vollmer seated himself and offered each of them a distant smile before focusing on Reinhardt as the elder of the two.
“Tell me, then,” von Vollmer said, something of a let’s-pass-the-time manner to his voice, “how are things in the police these days?”
“We get by,” Reinhardt answered.
“What does this place do?” Weber demanded.
“Scrap metal recycling,” said von Vollmer with a tight smile. “Rather successful, too.”
“No shortage of scrap,” said Weber. Reinhardt flicked a glance at him, but the other detective’s face was straight.
“That’s right,” said von Vollmer. His eyes flickered up and over Weber, and Reinhardt saw in the slight flare of his gaze that neither the Junker he would always be, nor the officer he suspected he had once been, liked what they saw. “No reason to let any of it go to waste when it can be turned to both a profit and a source of renewal.”
The Divided City Page 13
