The Murderer in Ruins

by Cay Rademacher

  ‘We didn’t find any tracks on the path to indicate the body being dragged,’ Maschke said.

  ‘The gravel is frozen solid as if it were covered in concrete; the layer of snow is no thicker than a sheet of newspaper. The body might have been lying there for a day or two. In that time dozens of people could have walked along that path and their footsteps would have erased any drag marks,’ Stave replied.

  ‘And none of them spotted the corpse?’ MacDonald queried.

  ‘It was lying in a bomb crater, off to one side. Couldn’t be seen from the path.’

  ‘If the old boy was really walking along Collau Strasse and was very lame, then that might mean he lived nearby. The lads from the lab did good work and made dozens of copies of the police photo,’ Maschke said. ‘This morning we went out and asked the local residents. It was easy enough as they were all queuing up at the nearby ration card distribution centre. I can’t say we asked each and every local resident, but most of them must have been there and I’m afraid not one of them said they had ever seen the old man. It did ruin the appetite of a few of them, though.’

  ‘So if he didn’t live there,’ Stave asked, ‘how did he end up there?’

  ‘Because somebody dumped him there,’ Maschke suggested. ‘Only the killer knows how he got those red marks on his wrist, but maybe he tied him up before killing him. Maybe he even dragged him by the wrist after he was dead. He might have strangled him, stripped him and then secretly dragged him amidst the rubble. Job done.’

  ‘Don’t forget the stick,’ MacDonald added. ‘Assuming it actually belonged to the victim, that would suggest that the old man got to the spot where we found him of his own accord. Whether he was attacked on Collau Strasse or anywhere else, why would the murderer have taken his stick too and left it lying beside him? Despite robbing him of almost everything else? I reckon he was attacked right there on the footpath, strangled and then stripped, but the murderer simply overlooked the walking stick, otherwise he’d have taken it too. Another hint that the attack took place at night, although that’s hardly surprising in any case.’

  ‘So how do you explain the marks on his wrist?’ asked Maschke. ‘If our killer did him in then and there, no need for him to tie him up or drag him anywhere.’

  MacDonald smiled and shrugged. ‘Not the faintest idea, old boy.’

  For him all this is just an intellectual puzzle, Stave thought, but he couldn’t bring himself to get angry with the young officer. Yet another reason for winding this case up as soon as possible.

  ‘We’re not getting anywhere like this,’ he told them. ‘It’s not making sense. We’ll print off 1,000 posters. Stick them up everywhere, particularly at the ration card centres in the area. Find out who didn’t collect his coupons today. Rattle the doors of the local doctors. Maybe somebody was treating him for his leg. Meanwhile I’ll write up a basic report for the files, and then we’ll hit the black market.’

  A short while later Stave was sitting alone at his desk, bashing away at the typewriter with two fingers, quick then slow, like a machine gun with an autoloader problem. He glanced over what he had written: ‘The darkness gives a character all of its own to these rubble-strewn districts.’ Stave sat back in surprise. That wasn’t the sort of language he usually used in official reports.

  I’m getting emotional, he thought to himself, and wondered what Cuddel Breuer or Chief Public Prosecutor Ehrlich would make of it. Should he change the wording, retype it? Nonsense, if they wanted to consider him some daft romantic, that was up to them. He sighed and slid the report into the registry file.

  Then the office began to fill up again. MacDonald was the first to arrive, followed by Maschke who announced that he’d come across a couple of people turning up later at the ration card office, but that none of them recognised the victim either.

  There was a knock on the door, a few muttered words of greeting, and the atmosphere in the room began to thicken as first a colleague from the criminal operations team came in, along with another from the missing persons and lost property office, one from the youth liaison department, a representative of the female police, and obviously a man from Department S, which had been set up specially to combat the black market.

  Stave gave them a quick briefing about the murders, but noticed almost immediately that word had got around amongst the operations teams. It would be nice if people would share a bit more. ‘If we’re lucky the raid will throw up something that belonged to one of the victims,’ he said. ‘That at least would give us a lead.’

  The search team lad, a young, pale-faced man with tired rings around his eyes, gave him a sceptical look. ‘We have no idea who the victims are. We don’t know what might have been stolen off them. Obviously a raid is going to throw up lots of stuff but how are we to know if anything we confiscate might have belonged to an unknown person?’

  Stave lifted his hands. ‘People handle all sorts of stuff on the black market. Maybe somebody’s got a set of false teeth for sale? Or a truss? If so, we’d like have a chat with him or her. Maybe we’ll find a few pushers of American cigarettes or homemade hooch. They might have nothing to do with the murderers, but sit them down in the interrogation room and you never know what they might suddenly recall. Maybe they’ll remember somebody else touting the clothes of a young woman one day and those of an old man the next? Maybe they’ll have heard of a medallion with a cross and two daggers on it? I grant you it’s a slim chance, but we need to pick up any lead we can.’

  ‘Who cares? The black market is the black market. A raid is always worthwhile.’ The head of Department S – once a chubby character, but now shrunken to a shadow of his former self, shivering in a suit too big for him – rubbed his hands with glee. ‘We haven’t done a big job since Christmas. It’s high time we pushed the gentlemen spivs in the hot seat again. Good training for my lads. I suggest we hit Hansaplatz Square. That’s where you find most customers and more stuff for sale than anywhere else.’

  Nobody contradicted him.

  Stave nodded. If there was one place absolutely made for the black market then it was the Hansaplatz, once a tranquil spot in the St Georg district surrounded by four-storey middle-class apartment blocks. As if by a miracle the buildings had survived the hail of bombs undamaged and the square was only a short walk from the main station. The smugglers and pushers brought their goods from all the occupation zones and even abroad to the station first and foremost. The spivs would hide their stocks of penicillin, cigarettes, coffee and hard spirits in the cheap hotels or rented apartments around the square. On a few occasions the lads from Department S had discovered what were effectively warehouses full of contraband. Piece by piece this contraband would make its way down to the Hansaplatz where every day the good citizens of Hamburg would turn up in search of something or other that was not available on the ration cards.

  Nobody who lived in St Georg would ever grass on one of the dealers or their customers, because they lived on the crumbs from the illegal trade: a pound of butter in monthly rent perhaps for somebody who would let a room in their apartment without asking too many questions, a case of Lucky Strikes for a couple of lads who would keep watch, a discount on illicit hooch…

  ‘When do we start?’ Stave asked.

  ‘Now, today,’ the man from Department S said. ‘Before anybody gets wind of it. Just give me the time to get my people together. We’ll need about 100 in uniform, a couple of British lorries so we can get our people to St Georg without being noticed. Let’s say, 5 p.m. this afternoon. That’s when you’ve got people coming out of offices and shops, the square will be full and the spivs will all have stocked up. Also it’ll be dusk and they won’t notice us coming until it’s too late.’

  ‘Good,’ the chief inspector said. ‘I’ll be at the Hansaplatz at 4.30 p.m. to take a look around. Nobody there will notice me. Maybe I’ll spot someone suspicious. Then at 5 p.m. we bag the lot of them and ship them to the police station. I want everyone we grab to be interrogated before t
he end of the day. And a complete inventory of every article seized.’

  Stave’s colleagues filed out of his office, smiles on their faces, whispering to one another. Adrenalin flowing. Eager for the hunt.

  It took barely half an hour to walk from the CID HQ to the Hansaplatz. Stave walked across the Lombard Bridge with his coat collar pulled up high and his head down. The Outer Alster on his left was a great blue-white expanse of ice, tinted pink by the pale afternoon sun. Two children were skating in squiggly patterns over the ice, a few couples walking over it uncertainly. Stave made a face. Icy surfaces were always a good excuse to slip and grab hold of one’s partner for support. A certain romance, even when it was 20 degrees below.

  The quickest way would have been to go straight to the station, and then turn left towards Hansaplatz, but Stave decided to take a different route. It was true that nobody in the St Georg black market knew him, but he regularly hung around the station, asking about his son. So he took the back streets through St Georg until he came to Brenner Strasse, which would lead him into the Hansaplatz on the opposite side from the station. He passed by the Würzburger Hof hotel where the lads from Department S last autumn had unearthed several barrels of preserving alcohol stolen from the State Institute for Zoology. The thieves had also taken the glass jars complete with their content: tapeworms, lizards and snakes. The preserving alcohol was palmed off on the black market as home-made ‘double caraway schnapps’ at 500 Reichsmarks per litre. By the time the authorities had got the tip-off and managed to raid the store, almost half of it had gone down the throats of unsuspecting drinkers: 10,000 litres of tapeworm happiness.

  At the end of Brenner Strasse two teenage layabouts were hanging around, keeping watch. They gave him no more than a bored passing glance. Stave was hardly the only one heading for Hansaplatz. Men in long overcoats and flat caps; old women with wicker baskets; a one-legged veteran scouring the ground for cigarette butts and almost falling on his face every time he bent down to pick one up; workers from the port; men with bulging worn briefcases; two Chinese standing by the entrance to the Lenz bar.

  Stave wandered amongst the throng. Slowly he began to make out a pattern, like waves on an ocean, like the ripples created by a stone tossed into the water. There would be quiet whisperings and then suddenly off would come an overcoat or a briefcase lid would be opened, cigarettes and Reichsmarks would pass from hand to hand, each exchange done quickly, inconspicuously.

  In the entrance to an apartment block a young woman was offering a pair of men’s shoes: ‘400 Reichsmarks,’ she whispered, a flurry of motion and the shoes went to an elderly man with a briefcase who handed her something in return, then both walked off in opposite directions. An old man was offering bread coupons to three women standing round him clearly outraged by the price. The old boy looked round nervously, obviously an old soldier, with boots too big for him, in a dyed Wehrmacht greatcoat held together with safety pins, and pulled out a tin can from his pocket: ‘Butter two nine.’ 290 Reichmarks for one pound. Some smugglers must have brought a big load through the control points, otherwise it wouldn’t be anywhere near so cheap. Either that or it’s not the real thing. Two men were whispering together in a doorway and then suddenly there was an aroma of coffee in the air, before the banknotes changed hands, lots of banknotes. An old, careworn woman disappeared with one of the Chinese into the bar. A boy, barely 14 years old, was heedlessly calling out ‘Flints’, ‘Flints for cigarette lighters, just 18 Reichsmarks!’ Another teenager was peddling Lucky Strikes, seven Reichsmarks each. Stave opened his ears and let the prices roll over him: ‘Wehrmacht cutlery, rust-free, four-piece, very useful for refugees – 23 Reichsmarks. A ball of yarn – 18 Reichsmarks. A pound of sugar – 80 Reichsmarks. A month’s food rations – 1,000 Reichsmarks.’

  We must have a word with the man selling the ration card, thought Stave to himself. Most workers and office employees earned no more than 50 Reichsmarks a week. If you had to keep your nose to the grindstone for six weeks to buy a pound of butter, then you really were poor – and ready to deal yourself on the black market. Or to take risks.

  Watches, gold coins, dollar bills in shoe polish tins. Two metres of zinc guttering. Three freshly caught trout. A clean false identity card to get through the denazification process. Blank passports. A tiny Persian rug. Penicillin from Allied supplies. A leather suitcase. A woman’s blouse.

  But no false teeth, no truss, no medallion.

  Damn it, thought Stave, the boy from the search team was right; how on earth could you link any of the objects for sale here to one of the victims? Could the blouse have belonged to the young woman? Did the old man pull the piece of guttering out of the rubble and get himself killed for it?

  ‘Police!’

  The word resounded across the square, like the warning cry of some Stone Age caveman.

  Police helmets, green overcoats, truncheons cut down the side streets, screaming women, obscenely cursing boys. People pushing, shoving, clanking everywhere as tin cans, Wehrmacht cutlery, spectacle frames, work tools land on the cobbles along with cigarettes, false identity cards and bundles of Reichsmarks.

  The experienced dealers realise straight away that they’re caught and immediately dispose of the evidence. It’s gone for good one way or another but if they don’t find anything on you the penalty is less severe.

  However their customers are novices. They clutch their booty and run for it, into an alleyway, into the next doorway, into a bar. But the police are suddenly everywhere, staring at them fiercely or maybe just laughing maliciously at them, even raising their hefty truncheons. But they don’t need to use them; it’s enough to bark out orders, then march towards the mass of people, crowding them ever closer together.

  Stave cursed, pushing his way through the crowd, pushing and kicking his way through towards the man who had the ration card to sell. The man is not making a fuss, the ration card has almost certainly been dropped on the cobbles somewhere. He’s young, pale, dark hair shaved to a millimetre length, a horrible scar on his left cheek as if he’d been struck by lightning.

  A former soldier, Stave reckoned. He had to be careful.

  The chief inspector pushed an old woman to one side and found himself next to the man, took out his police ID and held it under his nose.

  ‘CID!’ he shouted at him.

  There was more he wanted to say, read the man his rights for example, but all of a sudden a fist hit him in the face. It went black before his eyes and he could taste the salt of his own blood. Not very good manners, Stave thought to himself as the pain in his head diminished.

  The younger man had turned, trying to flee. But he faced a wall of bodies. He pushed the old woman Stave had already shoved out of the way brusquely to the ground. But one foot got caught in her shopping basket, leaving him jumping up and down, swearing and kicking at the wickerwork.

  Stave was on him in a split second, forcing his arm up behind his back and throwing him down on the cobbles so that the man cried out. The crack of ribs breaking. With the taste of his own blood still in his mouth, Stave leapt on him, both knees on his breastbone, and heard the crack of another. The dark-haired man didn’t cry out any more, just gurgled.

  ‘Nice move!’ somebody called.

  Stave turned around and recognised the kid from the search team who had somehow fought his way through the crowd.

  ‘Judo,’ he replied, coughing, as he got to his feet and smoothed his hair. Eugene Hölzel, an average-sized man with yellow horn-rimmed glasses had turned up at the Hamburg Criminal Police department a year ago. He turned out to have been German judo champion several times over. The Brits had banned him from indulging in his sport other than to train the police. Stave, rather naïvely, imagined the training might help him overcome his limp. Now he thought to himself with no little satisfaction, at last Hölzel’s torture had been worth it, as he watched two uniformed policeman lead away the man, who was still bent double.

  ‘I’ll interrogate him f
irst,’ Stave told the uniforms.

  Men, women and a few children were all lined up against the wall of a big grimy apartment block. The Hansaplatz was covered with a thick layer of snow, as well as tins, boxes, paper rustling in the icy wind and a few things that were unidentifiable at a distance. A few of the policemen were chasing after Reichsmarks whirling in the air.

  Stave wondered idly how many of the notes would ever be handed in. His burst lip was no longer bleeding but it had swollen up. I just hope I don’t dribble like a drunk during the interrogations, he thought. The dark-haired character would go down for six months. That’s if he wasn’t linked to the killings, in which case he’d be for the noose.

  The uniformed police were dragging the prisoners two by two on to the backs of trucks that had come down Brenner Strasse. One or two women were crying, a few men were cursing the police, but most were calm. They were tired. Resigned to their fate.

  Stave’s mind went back to other prisoners, thrown on to the back of a truck by the police in broad daylight, in the middle of town. It was only a few years back. Would it all never end? And who was to say that this was more justified than what happened back then? He had to force himself to think of the two strangulation victims, and that their murderer might be amongst those being loaded on to the back of these trucks.

  ‘Back to HQ,’ he ordered the teams. ‘It’s going to be a long night. I wouldn’t mind if somebody brought a pound of the coffee lying around here with them so we could all have a decent cup.’ But of course, nobody touched the confiscated goods. They were all honest German officials. And besides, there were a couple of British occupation troops watching them.

  Back at head office Stave, Maschke and a couple of the other CID men took charge of the interrogation rooms. The uniformed police would bring the prisoners from the overcrowded holding cells.