‘And just how am I supposed to help?’
‘You know everything that happens in the Scheunenviertel. You’ve got people everywhere. Someone must have seen something.’
‘I never heard anything about this.’
‘No one saw anyone go into the apartment the time it happened? No one saw him leave?’
‘What did Frau Schneider say?’ Fleischer said.
‘Nothing helpful.’
‘Well if she doesn’t know, what makes you think anyone else will? She was right there when it happened!’
‘But she was like you. Taken in by the idea Meist was beating up his girl.’
Fleischer took a deep drag of his cigarette and said nothing.
‘She didn’t get those bruises from him, Fleischer. She got them from her suitors. Some of whom she robbed rather than slept with. And you could have stopped it all.’
‘Fuck you.’ Fleischer spat his cigarette out. It sparked as it hit the floor. ‘I talked to her after I found it who this guy was, told her to leave him. She didn’t listen. Said it was nothing to do with me. Made it pretty clear she’d sever all ties with me if I didn’t drop that sort of talk. I thought it was love blinding her. You know how women get when their men beat them. They can’t see him for the bastard he is. Well, that’s how I thought it was. That I’d lose her altogether if I tried to get involved again. She never told me it wasn’t him. She never told me how it was at all.’
It was strange watching the all-knowing Fleischer admit to powerlessness. But there it was. Even with spies on every street corner he hadn’t known the truth about Maria and her beau.
Nor had he any information that would help him track down the killer. Not unless he put the word out. And he couldn’t very well do that from a police cell.
Fleischer looked at him. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘I can still probably let her go. But I can’t clear her name until I find whoever did it. I do that, there’s no threat of re-arrest. No cloud hanging over her. She’s free and clear.’
‘You’re sure she doesn’t know who?’ Fleischer said.
‘You’re sure you don’t know?’
They both sat back at the same time, chairs creaking in defeat.
‘Well here we are,’ Fleischer said. ‘Two useless old men, going nowhere.’
‘Not quite nowhere,’ Trautmann said, putting out his cigarette in an ashtray on the table and getting up. ‘This is enough for the murder commission to get its teeth into, at least. You sit tight. I’ll be back for you and Maria.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To see my boss,’ Trautmann said, and left Fleischer to stew in the interview room.
Trautmann was full of confidence all of a sudden. Weiss was a good man. Officious, true, but level headed. He’d know what to do.
The trouble was, Trautmann had left it too late.
Chapter 22
Something was wrong when he got to Weiss’ office. There were soldiers everywhere, and raised voices coming from the office. One of the voices belonged to Weiss.
At the door, two soldiers barred his way.
‘What’s going on?’ Trautmann said.
‘It’s ok, men,’ said a voice from within – it was von Gaben. ‘You can let him in. We’ve been expecting Kommissar Trautmann.’
Von Gaben? Was he there to put pressure on Weiss? Even if he was, why all the soldiers?
He went inside. Weiss stood behind his desk, his face flushed. Police President Grzesinski was in the room, too. Next to him stood von Gaben and Sergeant Kessler.
‘I wanted to give you the update on the Scheunenviertel case,’ Trautmann said to Weiss.
‘Too late for that, I’m afraid,’ Weiss said. ‘Seems I’m being replaced.’
‘Sir?’
‘The government is no longer able to sit back and let this violence engulf the streets unchecked,’ von Gaben said. He sounded like he’d been rehearsing in front of a mirror – his lisp almost undetectable, moustache stiffer than a taxidermied slug. ‘Law and order have broken down, and I’m authorised to – ’
‘This flies in the face of the constitution,’ Weiss said.
Grzesinski shuffled uneasily, and von Gaben said, ‘Come now, doctor. This is all perfectly legal and constitutional. As you well know. We can’t put up with this chaos anymore. The government is under pressure to do something about it and so we’ve been obliged to step in.’
‘It’s the worst kind of mob politics, is what it is!’ Weiss shouted.
‘My son is dead, doctor,’ von Gaben said, silencing him, ‘and you tell me I’m wrong to do this? From what I hear, your men have been running around causing major damage to private and public property and endangering police lives. All to harbour a murder suspect with underworld and communist connections. And all with your authority! Can you deny any of this?’
Kessler’s smirk was infuriating. But worse was the look of anger and hurt on Weiss’ face.
‘Is this true, Trautmann?’ Weiss said.
‘Sir, you don’t have all the facts. If I can have a moment, we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough on the case and I can explain – ’
‘I certainly hope you can, kommissar,’ von Gaben broke in. ‘But you can explain it to me. Dr Weiss’ authority is rescinded.’
‘Sir?’ Trautmann appealed to Weiss. Grzesinski went and laid a hand on his deputy’s shoulder and the fight seemed to leak out of him.
‘I understand you have the suspect in custody at this very moment?’ von Gaben said.
Looking around, Trautmann saw he was on his own.
‘That’s correct, minister.’
‘Has he confessed?’
‘He didn’t kill your son.’
‘Ah, this young woman then? The one my son was living with?’
Trautmann’s gaze flicked to Kessler, who didn’t react. Trautmann took a deep breath.
‘No minister. Not her, either.’
‘Oh come now, kommissar. Are you letting yourself be played for a fool?’
‘Minister, I must protest. These are hardly the circumstances to discuss this.’
‘Really?’ von Gaben said. ‘I’m not sure there hasn’t been altogether too much sneaking around in the dark already. Where’s your assistant?’
‘Minister, this isn’t right. I would remind you you’re also a suspect whose alibi has yet to be checked – ’
‘Where is Kriminalassistant Roth, Trautmann? Or are you shirking responsibility for him, too?’
Just how much did the minister know?
‘A car from the Alexanderplatz carpool driven into a burning building, destroying both it and the building itself...’ von Gaben was counting off on his fingers. ‘...Livestock let loose to stampede into the streets... A delivery truck crashed into a lamppost, damaging it, the lamppost, and innumerable autos driven by members of the public. Need I go on?’
‘The building was already on fire, minister! And had been machine gunned by others on the force. That’s what destroyed it! I had to go in to retrieve the suspect who might otherwise have been killed.’
‘You had to?’
‘Yes!’ Trautmann was shouting now. He knew he was close to losing control, but none of this made any sense. Yes, he’d done wrong, but he’d been pushed to these extremes, couldn’t any of them see?
‘You had to endanger your own life – and that of your subordinate? Not to mention countless uniformed officers who were simply doing their duty? And goodness only knows how many innocent members of the public? For some backstreet pimp?’
Grzesinski’s mouth hung open and even Weiss was shaking his head. And no wonder. With his charge sheet listed out loud like that it sounded like another man von Gaben was describing. A very dangerous man, at that. But he had to keep fighting.
‘A backstreet pimp whose niece holds the whole key to this case,’ he said.
‘And you can prove that?’ von Gaben asked.
Trautmann wanted to plough on. To tell what h
e knew. To justify all the crazy things he’d done. But something stopped him. With Kessler in the room it felt like some kind of monstrous trick. Like this goading was designed just to tease that very information out of him.
So he kept quiet.
Von Gaben turned to Kessler: ‘Well if that’s true it looks like we should put your plan into action as quickly as possible, sergeant. How soon can you be ready?’
‘Ready?’ Trautmann said. ‘Ready for what?’
‘Clearly you can’t be trusted with the case at this point, Trautmann. You will go to your office, type out your report and hand it to me personally before you leave. Then you can turn in your service pistol and go home.’
‘Home?’
‘We don’t need mavericks in Kripo when things hang in the balance out there,’ von Gaben said. ‘You’re suspended, kommissar.’
‘No!’
Kessler left the room. Trautmann reached out a hand to stop him – a reflex action. One of the soldiers blocked his way, his rifle raised across his chest.
‘Where’s he going?’
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but he will be transporting your two suspects to Tegel prison. If they’re as important as you say they need to be somewhere more secure than here.’
‘But that’s...’ Images flashed into Trautmann’s mind. The convoy stopped, Kessler’s men marching Fleischer and Maria out into an empty alley, or a deserted yard. Riddling them with bullets and then claiming brownshirts had ambushed them. Or maybe even setting it up with Kessler’s brownshirt contacts so they were ambushed for real... Only Kessler’s Schupo would be ready for it, primed to give up the two prisoners without a shot fired.
Kessler’s last chance to get even for the years of Fleischer’s bullying and blackmail. And once again justice would be done in the street and not in the courts. Germany would take more steps towards anarchy.
‘Minister, I request permission to be with the convoy when it leaves.’
‘Denied.’
‘But Minister – ’
‘I said denied!’ Von Gaben nodded to the two closest soldiers. ‘Gentlemen, kindly escort the kommissar to his office.’
As the men stepped forward to carry out their orders, Trautmann took a last look at Weiss, the crumpled shoulders, the weary frown, the seething, impotent anger. Then the former deputy police president met his gaze and shook his head. Not now, Trautmann, he seemed to say. Choose your battleground.
Trautmann pulled clear of the soldiers.
‘All right, von Gaben,’ he said. ‘I don’t need an escort.’
‘You’ll do as I asked and then leave?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have an hour to present your report. If you’re not done by then these soldiers will throw you out, if needs be. That clear?’
‘Crystal.’
‘Good. Then get on with it.’
Chapter 23
Trautmann shuffled back to the Kripo squad room feeling like he’d taken a punch to the gut. He passed more soldiers on the way, and plainclothesmen buzzing with the news that Weiss was out. Grzesinski too, apparently.
Seemed like all that Nazi propaganda had paid off. They were getting the mini-revolution they’d wanted, unlikely as it was to sate their lust for change.
Had Roth had been right all this time? Had he, Trautmann, been too concerned with protocol and lofty theories to see the reality of this ugly politics undermining it all? He’d thought justice would win out. But now? The case taken from him, his job taken from him, Fleischer and Maria about to be escorted to Tegel – with some kind of Kessler-arranged retribution a virtual certainty.
And Meist’s killer still free, probably never to be caught. Not now.
Trautmann got to his desk. It was heaped with papers and handwritten notes alongside tweezers and schnapps bottle. Roth’s desk was neat by comparison, his typewriter still grasping the sheet of paper he’d started to write his report on only a few hours ago.
Trautmann went over to see what Roth had typed so far, thinking he had to call the hospital and see whether Roth had pulled through. God alone knew what he would do if he hadn’t.
A throat clearing made him look up. Haas and Franke were back, and Haas was smiling.
‘Well?’ Trautmann said.
‘We got the name,’ Franke said.
‘He’s not far away either,’ Haas said.
‘How far?’ Trautmann said.
‘Lichtenberg.’
‘Is your auto still booked out?’ Trautmann said.
Damn the report, and damn von Gaben. He wanted answers, and this was his last chance to get them.
Chapter 24
The name of Maria’s ‘suitor’ was Klaus Esser. So said the photographer who’d recognised the photograph from the wallet.
They’d gone to the man’s apartment where his wife had said he was at work. Nothing to worry about, Trautmann had said, just returning the wallet and asking a few questions about how he’d lost it. The woman had been angry the police hadn’t been round before to follow up on her husband’s mugging. Trautmann had commiserated and sympathised while doubting very much whether Klaus Esser had reported anything to any precinct house.
Turned out Esser was a clerk at an import company with offices in Treptow near the canal docks. When they pulled up outside, Trautmann asked Haas and Franke to wait in the auto. Haas began to protest before Trautmann said:
‘No, this is supposed to be low key. You think he would say anything with us all there? Especially with his boss within earshot.”
No sense dragging them any further into this than he had to, either.
‘Low key?’ Franke said. ‘You do realise you look like a street bum?’
‘Just wait here,’ Trautmann said, choosing to ignore Haas’ sniggering. Especially as his authority was purely charade at that point.
He got out of the auto and crossed the street to the offices, housed in a squat brick building with deep set windows that might once have been a storehouse for grain. He had to walk through an archway and found the door to his right.
A young man sat in waistcoat and shirtsleeves behind the reception desk, his hair oiled and parted on a razor’s edge. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of Trautmann.
‘We’re not giving out donations, I’m afraid.’
Trautmann’s mood boiled over. He pulled out his papers and shoved them in the clerk’s face.
‘I’m looking for Klaus Esser, son. And I’ve just come from a stand-off with a suspect in a burning building, so get moving before you make me lose my temper.’
The clerk jerked to his feet as though pulled on strings. He disappeared through an anonymous-looking door. Trautmann got a blast of clacking typewriter keys and the hum of conversation before the door closed.
So much for low-key. The clerk hadn’t even asked what it was all about. Doubtless the rumour would spread that Esser had something to do with the burning building fugitive.
The clerk returned and said, ‘If you’d like to walk this way?’
‘No I wouldn’t like to walk that way. Bring him out here, now!’
The clerk jumped back and vanished again. Trautmann grinned. That little outburst had just been for fun. Still, if he was going to take out his frustrations, better to do it with that pompous little fool than the likes of Haas and Franke.
This time when the clerk returned he had someone in tow. Another young man with neat hair above a face full of purpling swellings.
‘Mr Esser?’ Trautmann thundered, brandishing the man’s wallet. ‘Your wife is most upset no one’s been to see you to discuss your mugging as yet. Perhaps you’d like to step outside to talk it over?’
Esser had trouble meeting Trautmann’s eyes, though of course he complied readily enough.
Once outside, Trautmann said, ‘Right, tell me all of it and don’t leave anything out. I know you were in the Scheunenviertel last night. That’s where you left this.’ He handed the wallet over. ‘You give me what I want to know and I
might not even need you to make a statement. Nothing official, ok?’
Esser took the wallet and flipped it open, staring into it but seeing the events of the previous evening.
‘She came onto me, I swear.’ His voice came out slightly muffled through puffy lips.
‘Swear all you like. Just get to the point.’
‘She took me to her place, said it would be safer there. We started doing it when her guy walked in on us, out of nowhere. Shit, I didn’t even realise she had a guy. Well, he went crazy. Started punching me. I fell out of the bed and on the floor, scrabbling for my clothes, but he went on punching, and kicking me, you know?’
Trautmann nodded.
‘Well, then his woman starts pawing at him, yelling at him to stop. Of course, that just made him madder. But he stopped hitting me. Started shouting at her instead, then. I saw her pick up this thing off the dresser and go at him with it. I couldn’t see what it was, just that it flashed where it caught the light. Could have been anything. And I pulled my trousers on and got the hell out of there with them still shouting behind me as I went. Then later I realised I’d dropped my wallet. Or maybe she’d stole it. I don’t know. That bitch.’
‘Steady on lad,’ Trautmann said. ‘A little respect, if you please. It’s no easy thing selling your body.’
‘But now my money’s gone and my wife might find out! My wife! Oh God, I couldn’t bear it if that happened, you know?’
‘Calm down, boy,’ Trautmann barked. ‘You swear that’s all there was to it? You didn’t hit the guy back?’
‘No, I told you, I got out of there as quickly as I could.’
‘You didn’t know either of them before last night? You’d never met before? Been a regular customer, anything like that?’
‘No. God, no. No way!’
‘You ever own a gun?’
‘No.’
‘Remember I can check that.’
‘No!’
‘All right,’ Trautmann said. ‘Now take some deep breaths and think hard for me, please. When you left the apartment building, did you see anyone else going in?’
‘Funny you say that. There was someone, now you mention it.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Is it important?’
Berlin Burning Page 8
